Digimon Tamers: Hybridization
by DeltaChevron
Summary: Set 4 years after the Locomon incident Digimon and Tamers are now common. That doesn't mean that all is well and good for as the saying goes the more things change, the more they stay the same. 1st person OC main character. Tamers/02 X-over. Please Review
1. Arrvial in the Streets

Usual disclaimer, I don't nor probably ever will own Digimon, so hope you like it.

Quick notes here italic denotes thought and bold is for emphasis on things.

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_It's been four years since the Locomon incident in Japan, the incident that taught the world that Digimon were real. A lot has changed since then, now there are Tamers popping up everywhere and working hard to keep the Wild Ones in their place. All that's changed for me is that I'm in the Digital World, everything else including running for my life…well that's all still the same…mostly._

-_Oh talking to ourselves now are we?_

_Don't we always…how far is this stupid portal anyway?_

-_Another ten feet or so._

_Great let me guess it's off the edge of that cliff?_

-_Yup._

_Perfect_…

Jumping off the cliff I hit the portal in matter of seconds. As I fell through I willed my body change back to normal. As the exit drew ever nearer I looked down at my hands, my **once again** human hands. Then I noticed what was on the other side of the exit, or what wasn't. Instead of seeing the sky of the real world all I saw was cars and people running away.

_Crap_

-_Speedy thing goes in speedy thing comes out right?_

_Right, meaning this is going to hurt._

As I pass through the exit I curl up and roll forward smashing into a car windshield with my back as I roll a little farther up onto its roof. I shake my head to clear the ringing in my ears and look around. Definitely in Shinjuku Japan **this time**. I hop off the car and check to make sure nothing's broken. Satisfied I look up and groan as I see the SkullGreymon I had been running from emerge more gracefully from the same portal I had.

"…Crap…" I said

"You **will** be my Tamer!" the SkullGreymon roared at me.

"And I already told you I'm only gonna tame **myself**!" I yelled back

I took a step forward and then felt a wave of nausea and exhaustion sweep over me. I stumbled and fell to the ground my head hitting the asphalt. I tried to get back up, or even get into a kneeling position but I even couldn't manage that. I lay there on the ground as the SkullGreymon got closer and closer. It looked like I was about to be whisked away or killed **again**.

"Foxtail Inferno!"

"Pyro Blaster!"

"Gargo Laser!"

The three attacks slammed into SkullGreymon and destroyed him. His body broke up into data and dispersed into the wind. With the immediate threat dealt with the three new Digimon digivolved back into their rookie forms and walked over to me. The three Digimon from left to right were Renamon, Guilmon, and Terriermon. The last thing I saw before I slipped into unconsciousness was them approaching me.

"Well what should we do about him?" asked a girls voice

"I don't know if he doesn't wake up soon it could be bad." replied a guy

_Reppamon…you there?_

_-…Yeah, how are ya feelin?_

_…Weak, dizzy…all and all just bad._

I opened my eyes and looked around, taking note of all the doors into the room. Then I saw **them** I had only heard two voices but there were three people two guys and a girl. I instantly recognized them as The Tamers, the original Tamers who had saved the world several years ago. Takato Matsuki, Henry Wong, and Rika Nonaka, at least I was in good hands. I started to sit up and noticed my jacket was gone then groaned as I suddenly felt dizzy.

"Hey looks like he's finally awake." Takato said

_Reppamon, assessment?_

-_They don't mean us any harm so for the time being we're safe._

"Good" I said out loud

"What's good?" Henry asked

"Uh! Nothing! Nothing, just thinking out loud." I hastily reply

"Well you're not the weirdest person we've ever met." Rika said

"So mind telling me where I am?"

"You are in my house" Rika said "and for an American you speak Japanese very well."

"When did I learn Japanese?" I muttered to myself quietly

"So you mean to say you don't know Japanese?" a quiet voice behind me asked causing me to jump

"Renamon don't do that, we don't know if he'll wimp out on us again." Terriermon said as he walked in

"Terriermon, tact." Henry said to his partner

-_Well you're in trouble_

"Don't remind me Reppamon."

"Reppamon? Who is Reppamon?" Rika asked

"Arrragh!" I grabbed my head with my hands " can't focus right now!"

"**Who is Reppamon?**" Rika repeated emphasizing each word

-_Gonna have to tell them sooner or later now is probably the best time._

"Alright, alright…I'll tell 'em. Do you think I should start all the way back at the beginning?"

-_That would probably be the best place to._

"WHO IS REPPAMON AND WHY DO YOU KEEP TALKING TO NO ONE!" Rika yelled losing her temper

"It would probably be best if we went outside for this." I said getting shakily to my feet

Renamon, being the closest, helped me stand and lead me outside to courtyard of Rika's house. I waved her off and stood up. I focused and reached inside myself for the now long familiar power of my other half. I closed my eyes purely out of habit having watched myself transform in the mirror many times before. I heard the collective gasp from everyone as they watched it for the first time. It looked like I was digivolving except that my skin was not peeled away simply covered by new form, like a full body suit.

My body became covered in tan fur, darkening to brown mid way down my hind and forelegs. My ears moved to the top of my head as my face became fox-like, my facial fur was a light tan almost white and my ears were tipped orange brown. A rust and white colored rope formed, tying itself around my neck as a clasp took shape and a thin tattered white cloth extended from it. The last thing to form was my odd shaped blade tail. The eye on it opened and it brought itself forward to sit right next to my head as I went down onto all four of my legs.

"Yo you gonna say anything Reppamon?" I asked my tail after a few seconds with my eyes still shut

"Anything…there happy?" my tail said

"That'll have to do I guess." I said opening my eyes

"Introductions are in order now I suppose, my name is…well, my pseudonym is Alexander David Sinclair, Alex for short."

"And I am Reppamon, his other, more digital half."

This was greeted with a combination of silence, shock, and awe. I was a little worried when after 5 minutes no one had done anything. Renamon was the first to overcome her shock and approached me slowly and with the utmost caution as if I were a bomb about to go off any second. For a few seconds I focused my mind on being bipedal and felt the structure of my forelegs shift accordingly. I stood up causing Renamon to jump in surprise. She regained her composure and finished crossing the few feet left between us and reached out her hand touching me on the shoulder. She gave a gentle squeeze, as if to reassure herself that I was real and not a something of delusions and grandeur.

"He…he's real." Renamon said quietly a surprised look on her face

Everyone moved forward as a group and I was pinched, poked and prodded to confirm Renamon's statement. This carried on for about a minute before I shook everyone off me. Before I could say or do anything else my stomach growled loudly.

"Well" Rika said "why don't we get you some food for now and then you can explain how…this" she motioned at my body.

"Alright, food as payment for a story, I can work with that." I replied as we all headed inside.


	2. Logical Explaination Right?

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon

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We were gathered around the large kitchen table, empty plates and glasses from the finished meal still sitting on it. I looked around and at everyone and realized how lucky I was to be found by them; Takato Matsuki, Henry Wong, Rika Nonaka, Guilmon, Terriermon, and Renamon. I shook my head and sighed, extending my right arm. The brown fur on my hands changed to white at my wrists. I focused on myself and idly watched as the fur twisted sideways and vanished, my arm becoming fully human once again, hidden within my shirt sleeve which blended seamlessly with my Digimon shoulder. As I heard the collective gasp I grinned a little. To me this was an unremarkable feat, something I had seen and done countless times before.

"Going for shock and awe are we?" Reppamon, my tail, said jokingly

"If I am, then you'll be the only thing I leave. But, rather than go slow I'll just skip ahead to that part." I replied as the rest of my body quickly changed back to being human.

I looked down at my clothes and realized that, despite all the fighting I had been through recently, they were still intact. From my comfortable running shoes and khaki shorts, to the odd shirt that I loved to wear. It used to be a long sleeve half zip but I had cut the left sleeve short and hemmed so it wouldn't come apart. It was still in one piece and one of my favorite shades of faded blue. I pulled down the zipper and pulled my arm right arm inside my shirt.

"You don't need to take your shirt off, it doesn't matter if you're muscular or not." Rika said

Ignoring her comment I sighed and pulled the right side of my shirt down off my shoulder and stuck my arm out of it. There was another collective gasp, however, this time it was one of horror. I just stared blankly at my arm; I had seen it many times and remained unfazed by it. My right arm was covered in scars, some large and some small, they criss-crossed chaotically over my skin. I stared at it idly before slipping it back into my shirt and zipping it up. Even with the scars out of sight everyone still had horrified looks on their faces and it was deathly silent.

"Suddenly it feels like you're in the graveyard you belong in doesn't it." Reppamon chuckled

"I hate that joke." I said my face falling

"Well, it's not like you're a dead man walking or anything."Terriermon said

"Actually," I said before Henry could speak "that's exactly what it is."

"How?" Takato began before I cut him off

"I'll explain everything I can. I was hit by…something, we still don't know what. It knocked me out on impact and from then I remember very little. I remember I woke up once in the ambulance and felt like pain like I had never thought imaginable before I passed out again. Then I remember floating through an empty void, it was boring, very boring. Then next thing I know I wake up in the hospital feeling better than I ever before."

"How?"

"I'm getting there Takato, patience. My cousin Michael was my doctor at the hospital and when it was finally just the two of us he filled me in on what had happened to me. After getting to the hospital and being put into the ER, where they would fix as much of my arm as possible, I…I died. I was medically dead for one minute, an entire minute, they had called time of death already and were about to unhook the machines from me when my vitals came back. My vitals were stable so they fixed up my arm and put me into a room."

"So you really did die then?"

"Yea, I'm pretty sure that when I was just floating in that boring empty void is when I was dead. Anyway, I might have been stable but I was now in a coma. It could have taken months for me to wake up, and even then, I might not be me. On the second day I was in my coma, Michael was approached by a Kudamon and he had an idea that might truly save me and wake me up. I would be made his Tamer and he would lose his body by healing mine. As a result his mind became part of mine. I didn't understand the finer points of Michael's explanation but all I knew was that I was alive and a Tamer."

I pulled out my D-Power and showed everyone. Its trim and strap were both grey and the main body of it was the same pale blue as my shirt.

"That's nice and all but" Rika began

"How did I start transforming and talking to my, at the time Kudamon, now Reppamon." I finished for her. She nodded her head.

"Momentai, Rika, momentai. If we just stop interrupting I'm sure he'll tell us." Terriermon said

"Listen to the pot calling the kettle black, but he is right. I'm getting there. Where was I? Oh right, I was alive, I was a Tamer and if I understood Michael correctly my Digimon was a part of me. It took a few hours but I finally managed to talk to Kudamon. So despite being alone in the hospital I always had someone to talk to. We went home two days later. I had to keep my D-Power hidden from my family for a few reasons; my brother never shuts up about stuff, my dad would tell my mom, and my mom is a Digimon hater. Of course my brother was the first to find out and proceeded to congratulate me then tell everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, he knew and then they were all clambering to see me. Momentai." I finished holding up my hands to stop any questions

"I'm getting there. My brother had found me curled up in my bed as Kudamon, somehow I had transformed in my sleep. It took at least an hour for us to figure out how to change back. I asked Kudamon why didn't warn me about something like this, as it turns out he didn't even know it was possible. Once everyone found out it wasn't so bad, but, mom… she said I wasn't her son, that her real son had died in the hospital the moment I woke up. So I took my stuff and moved in with my grandparents next door. They saw what happened to and said it was a blessing, a true second chance. They couldn't understand why mom now hated me and neither do I. Michael was MY [b]CHOSEN[b] proxy. If I was in a condition where I couldn't make decisions he was supposed to for me. I picked him for that when he got his MD, I filled out the paperwork, everything. Mom had no right to be mad at him for his choice."

"It sounds like someone was being ungrateful." Terriermon quipped

"Terriermon!" Henry started

"No, he's right, she really was being ungrateful. Anyway Michael managed to get a job at a hospital here in Shinjuku. So, I got all my money out of the bank, set up my pseudonym, told everyone I wanted to keep in touch with about it, and then I entered the Digital World through the gate in Atlanta. That was about two weeks ago right?"

"Two and a half."

"At least one of us has the number right. Before I left my brother caught up with me outside the gate and gave me a Digivolution card. I didn't even know if I could make use of the cards yet but I took it anyway. As it turns out I can, but I have to slash it before I transform and then it activates once I do. If it didn't work, I'd be a very flat person right now; I would have been trampled by an angry Tortamon. Now we're stuck as Reppamon, probably because I don't seem to use up any of my Digimon energy when I'm human. Ok, now you can ask questions."

"Why did you come out in the middle of a road instead of the gate at the Hypnos building?" Henry asked

"Well, we got a little lost, and then that Skull Greymon started chasing me demanding I become its Tamer. So I just ran to the nearest natural portal. We got lucky that we wound up in the right place this time, last time we ended up in Russia. It wasn't too hard to get back we just had to get to Moscow and use the gate there."

This time Renamon spoke up "Do you know when you'll turn back into Kudamon?"

"Like I said it's been about a week, but since I spent most of my travel time in my human form it can't be much longer now, maybe only a day or so."

"In the mean time you should stay here until you find your cousin." Rika said

We all looked at her a little stunned by this statement. Only Renamon seemed to be unaffected by what Rika had said.

"Rika is right you know. This house is large and there more than a few spare rooms where you could sleep." Renamon said

"We know it's just that…well we were surprised to hear Rika be the first one to mention it." Takato responded

"Well where else could he stay gogglehead? Your house? I didn't know your family had a spare bedroom. If you don't what about with you Henry? No, your family has enough people living under one roof already. So that only leaves here, like Renamon said, my house is big and I know we have at least three spare rooms he could sleep in." Rika countered

"I'm fine with that." I said

"Good cause it's not like you have much say in the matter to begin with."

"Momentai everyone, momentai. " Terriermon said soothingly "Rika is right and since it's getting late the rest of us should probably head home for the night."

Everyone agreed on that point me included. While Rika showed everyone out I transformed back into Reppamon and went out into the garden. I walked around for a little while before I jumped up onto the wall that ran the perimeter of the property and started running laps. This served a dual purpose; I got to burn off energy that was keeping me from Digivolving back into Kudamon and I got to watch as the area around changed over the next hour or so. I finally changed back into Kudamon; my body now had more ferret like traits to it, instead of being about 6 feet tall I was now about 3 and half feet tall, all my fur was now white and I had yellow markings on my back, my tail was thin and furry again and was tipped with a brass bullet casing, in my left ear was a small red hoop earring, and around the bottom of my neck was my golden collar. I walked back inside and was on my way to the room Rika said I could use when I passed by her room and heard a soft whimpering. Our curiosity getting the better of us we peeked inside and our jaw promptly hit the floor.

Inside the room we saw Rika curled up in bed whimpering. She was probably having a nightmare, from the sound of things it was a bad one. Kneeling over her sleeping form was Renamon. Renamon gently laid a paw on Rika's cheek and began softly singing a lullaby while stroking Rika's cheek. I pulled my mouth shut and leaned casually against the door frame, closing my eyes. I stood there and listened until Renamon finished singing. She looked up at me and even with my eyes closed I could tell she wanted talk to me outside. So I lead the way back out into the garden.

" You really care about her don't?" we asked

"What's with the double voice?"

"Hmm? Oh this happens when we're both expressing the same thought."

"I see, to answer your question, yes I care for her greatly."

"In order to save her life you wouldn't hesitate to give your own would you?"

"No, wouldn't."

"That's good, a mother's love is always important." Renamon took a swipe at us but we just stepped off the wall.

"It's not something you should be afraid of, embrace it. That is what you should do; embrace it the way you wish to embrace your surrogate daughter." I walked back to the door "You know…if you ever wanna talk about it…I, no we, we will always be there for you."

I walked back into the house but instead of going to my room I curled up in front of Rika's door. I lay there for about ten minutes half-expecting Renamon to show up and beat me senseless any second. I was surprised by her actions when she did finally show up. She knelt down and put her paw gently on the side of my head and stroked my fur gently. She quietly said goodnight and faded into the shadows as I fell asleep.


	3. No Means No

I don't own Digimon and yes I know this chapter's a long one sorry ^^.

"There's a boy sleeping curled up outside your door. You never even told me you were dating anyone." Said a strange woman's voice

"We're not dating, we just met and he's staying here until he finds his cousin who moved to Shinjuku." I heard Rika say

"As long as the two of you are being safe" the woman began

"WE JUST MET AND WE ARE NOT DATING!"

I opened my eyes and uncurled from my position. I realized I must have transformed in my sleep, it was the only thing that could explain the all the yelling. Based on the lack of comments I could assume that Kudamon was still sleeping, something I fully intended to let him continue doing. I focused my mind and transformed back into my Kudamon form. I gave myself a quick once over and smoothed out most of my "bed fur", basically bed head with fur but more annoying. Once I had that sorted out I walked to the kitchen fully intent on getting breakfast.

"You're not listening to me mother!" Rika yelled as I walked in and climbed onto the counter

"Young love is so hard to admit." Said a beautiful blonde woman sitting across the table from Rika

"I'm not in love!" I went through the cabinets and pulled out a bowl and a box of cereal

"That's just it though. You are and just can't bring yourself to accept it." I poured the cereal into the bowl.

"Look mother, he's just someone WE are helping. I hardly know anything about him." I hopped off the counter with the bowl full of cereal.

"Oh quit trying to lie to me Rika." I opened the fridge and found the milk

"I'm not lying; just ask Renamon when she gets back." I poured milk over my cereal and put it back.

"How convenient, you can intercept her and tell her what to say." I rummaged through the drawers and got a spoon.

"Fine, then call Henry or Gogglehead and ask one of them." I put my bowl on the table, climbed onto the chair and started eating.

I took a bite of my cereal and wait for the argument to continue. Rika and the woman, who I amused was her mother, just sat there sat for a bit. Then I took a particularly loud bite and their heads snapped in my direction. Rika's expression became one of relief when she realized it was me. However, her mother seemed to panic and slowly raised her hand to point at me. Her mouth opened and closed but no sound came out as I continued to eat.

"Yes?" I asked her slowly

"…who…what?" she stuttered out

"Alex" I said pointing to myself "Digimon human." I said taking another bite

"How much of our argument did you hear?" Rika asked coolly

"Woke up at 'you didn't even tell me you were dating' tuned out when you yelled 'we're not even dating'. I grew up with a loud family so tuning people out is easy."

"How's Kudamon doing?" Renamon asked as she appeared in the room

"Still sleeping, I'm lucky he doesn't snore."

"I see, well an introduction is past due then. This is Rumiko Nonaka, Rika's mother." Renamon said indicating the blonde woman across the table.

"I'm Alexander David Sinclair" I said politely "Rika, would you mind filling your mother in one my story. I'm still rather hungry and explaining between mouthfuls would make it hard to understand."

Rika nodded and began recounting my story to her mother. Renamon made herself some breakfast and sat down to eat. I had finished my fourth bowl of cereal by the time Rika was done. Rumiko just sat there and stared at me in disbelief. It was almost like she was unable to comprehend everything that had happened to me. I sighed and jumped down from my chair and transformed back to my humanself. Rumiko screamed, waking Kudamon up, and proceeded to pass out.

_-That's the reaction we usually get_

_So glad you could join us, that woman is Rumiko Nonaka, Rika's mother._

_-She's not nearly as level headed as her daughter is she._

_You don't know the half of it. When she saw me as you all she could do was sputter like a bad engine, it was kind of funny._

"Sorry about her" Rika said pointing to her mother "All she's really able to think about is fashion."

"Rika that's not very nice, no matter how true it is," Said an elderly woman as she entered "my name is Seiko by the way, and Renamon has already told me about you." She said to me

"Well at least we don't have any more explaining to do today."

"That reminds me," Seiko said "Rika you promised to go with your mother to work today. Why don't you bring Alex and Renamon with you? Renamon can help you say no to putting anything on and Alex can ask around about his cousin."

To my surprise Rika brightened up at the idea. I didn't ask questions just nodded my agreement and started eating my fifth bowl of cereal. If she wanted to talk about it she would. If she didn't then I had no right to pry. We sat there quietly for the next five minutes until Rumiko began to stir.

"Alex and Renamon are coming with us to the test shoot mother, no arguments."

"But Rika" "No buts mother, they're going too, end of discussion."

"I was just going to say you should ASK them if they want to go."

"She already did and I'm okay with it, what about you Renamon?" "I am also fine with going."

"Oh…" Rumiko said looking a little defeated "well if that's the case then, Alex, we can get you some better clothes at the studio."

"I appreciate the offer but no, I'm fine with what I've got. Plus I was going to be Kudamon to avoid drawing attention of 'certain' people…"

"If you're going to do that then you can keep Renamon and I company when we do this PR thing as Sakuyamon do at one."

"Fine by me, after all, we're staying in **your** house."

Rika argued with her mother for the duration of the car ride to the studio but I was too busy talking to Kudamon to listen.

_So do you think we'll learn anything?_

_-No, but we don't have any leads so at least we're starting somewhere._

_True…you don't think one of __**them**__ will find us do you?_

_-…I certainly hope not. If they did we would be in trouble, your skills and ability to alter your Didimon body will only help us for so long._

_If only it was a Digimon and not a human. Then we could use some of Muspellhei's power without being a Mega and not have to worry about seriously injuring them._

_-Agreed_

"Hello back there, I said we're here."Rika said

"Hmm? Oh right." I said coming back to my senses

"You'd better change here, "Rumiko said "I think most people would react like me if you changed in plain sight."

_-What'd ya know! She's not hopeless after all._

I chuckled as I transformed into Kudamon. This earned me odd looks from both ladies. I waved them off with the "I just remembered something funny" excuse. They didn't believe me but let it drop anyway. I was grateful for that because I didn't feel like making something up on the spot. We went into the building and up to the 80th floor. As we were stepping out of the elevator Renamon took me aside.

"I'm only telling you this once so pay attention."I nodded in response "Whatever goes on inside this building today with Rika, you are **NOT** to tell anyone about it. Rika is doing this because her mother promised to do something with Rika later, something that Rika **wants** to do."

Again I nodded my head that I understood.

"Good, but **IF** you tell anyone, even accidently, I will make you regret coming back to life."

I nodded in acceptance of her promise. Then the two of us walked into the shooting room. When the other models saw me I instantly regretted not digivolving into Reppamon before coming. I was swarmed by them, sure they were all attractive but, I could only stand so much pinching, poking, prodding, and brushing before I got annoyed. Apparently only Renamon could hear my warning growls and lifted me from the group of women before I hurt anyone.

"Renamon, can you put me down on top of that wall over there?"

"Certainly, but why? If you don't mind my asking."

"So I can address the 'mob' from a safe distance." That got an amused smile from her as she set me down.

"Ladies while I do enjoy the attention the pinching, poking, and prodding has to stop."

"But we can still pet you right?" a brunette asked

"Yes, just be gentler about it. I actually came here looking for information about someone. A doctor who recently got a job at a hospital here in Shinjuku." I reached under my holy ring and pulled out a picture of Michael "His name is Michael Dean" I showed them the picture "and no, I don't know if he's single so don't ask."

The models talked amongst themselves for a bit and while they did I showed the picture to Renamon so she would know what he looked like in case she saw him. When she gave it back I carefully tucked it back under my holy ring and hopped off the wall onto a desk to desk below. They proceeded to crowd around me again and told me that, unfortunately, they had not seen or heard of Michael. In the down time between shoots I was constantly being pet and more than person attempted to put a bow on me, unsuccessfully I might add. When 12:30 rolled around I left with Rika and Renamon. On the way to the park where the event was being held we stopped and grabbed some food which we finished as we entered the park. As soon as we walked into the area we were swamped by people and I took refuge in the closest tree top. There was a fair sized group of people surrounding the tree and I looked pleadingly over at Rika who nodded, understanding what I was silently asking.

Rika and Renamon vanished in a flash of light as the biomerged and a moment later Sakuyamon was standing where they had been. Now everyone rushed over to her and she began signing autographs, taking pictures, and stuff like that. I climbed down from the tree feeling relieved to no longer be the center of attention. I stood there and watched, everything was going great, for about five minutes. Then I felt it, a sort of prickling on the back of my neck. Sakuyamon must have felt it to because she began sheparding people away as a Digital Field appeared. Out of the fog a shape became visible, one Kudamon instantly recognized.

_-F…its Magnamon._

_So, Sakuyamon can mop the floor with him._

_-He's not here to fight…he's here to…"retrieve" me, and since I'm part of you and you currently look like me…_

_F_

_-Hopefully he won't notice us._

He was looking right at me and crossed the distance before I could even blink. He put his hands under my arms and picked me up. He held me at arm's length and looked me up and down. Sakuyamon made to move forward. I waved her off, I'd try to handle this on my own for now.

"You've gotten bigger since the last time I saw you. You know how hard it was to track you down? It's almost like you **didn't** want to go back to the Digital World." He said

I could feel my thoughts and feelings synchronizing with Kudamon's "**We** don't want to go back to the Digiworld."

"You don't have to lie just because your captor is right there." "We are not lying."

"Why do you keep saying we? And what's with your voice?"

"He doesn't want to go with you to the Digiworld." Sakuyamon said

Magnamon looked at her "Of course **you** would say that."

I made my right arm human again and punched Magnamon in the jaw. It didn't do any good; he just gave me a confused look. I made my entire body human. **This** got a reaction out of him. He looked disgusted and furious, he threw me aside and started muttering to himself. I pulled out our D-Power and the one card I owned, my Digivolution card, and quietly slid it through the D-Power. Before he could move I had put both objects back into my pockets.

"YOU!" he yelled pointing at Sakuyamon "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing" she responded

"BULL! Tell me what you did!" "I just told you I didn't do anything to him."

"Whatever, either way he's coming back to the Digiworld with me. I can sort out whatever happened to him there."

"We already told you. **We are not going back**." "Then I'll just have to take you back!"

I didn't bother responding. Magnamon took up a fighting stance. Before he could move Sakuyamon got in his way. She was just trying to help but this…this was our fight. I changed back into Kudamon and instantly I was encased in a cocoon of data.

KUDAMON DIGIVOLVE TO…

My fur was stripped off leaving a wireframe beneath which was a glowing human body. My new fur appeared and covered the frame. The rope appeared and tied itself around my neck. Then my blade tail formed and its eyes opened, one on each side. Before the cocoon was destroyed I altered my body structure into a more human one bipedal, paw like hands, and a slightly more human face. The cocoon burst open revealing me.

REPPAMON

I fished under the rope around our neck and pulled out the picture of Michael. I motioned to Sakuyamon and handed her the picture.

"Keep that safe, this is our fight. Please don't interfere unless you have to."

She didn't say anything just took the picture and nodded before retreating to a safe distance.

"Now things get serious. We have an extra trick up our sleeve for situations like this."

"Oh and what can you possibly do now?"

"A winding path leads to a great gate. Open now gate to Muspellheim, the world of fire."

"Muspellheim isn't a world, it's a crossbow!"

"Wrong, the crossbow is named after one of the worlds in Norse mythology, the world of eternal fire."

There was a sudden rushing noise and I felt energy flowing into me. I had only done this once before and I was near a placid lake so I could see what was going on. My brown fur became black, the tan a shimmering orange yellow, and the white a flaming red. My tail become white hot as it was super heated. Reppamon's vision was unaffected by the heat, but this more than a cosmetic change.

There was twenty feet separating us and I crossed it in a fraction of a second landing an uppercut on Magnamon with my left hand. He flew a good thirty feet straight up, I jumped into the top of tree and pushed off it shooting past him. I spun in mid air.

"Vacuum Razor Wind!" The razor sharp cutting wind ignited by the heat of my tail slammed into Magnamon's back sending hurtling back at the ground. I beat him to it and landed a series of rapid punches against his chest as he fell into them. I got up on the balls of my feet and took up a boxing stance as he came closer. We traded several blows. I landed more than him but I knew I couldn't keep this up for much longer. The strain it put on my body was extremely high. I had to end this with the next blow and I did, it was a swift right jab across his jaw just like my earlier blow. This one sent him flying into the nearest tree.

"Now go back, and tell that son of a bitch leader of yours that **WE ARE STAYING HERE!**" I yelled at him.

He beat a hasty retreat and once he was out of sight I clamped back down on the fire energy that was racing through me. It took a few seconds before I managed to force it back and close the gate again. As my normal colors returned I digivolved back into Kudamon and fell over from exhaustion. Sakuyamon tucked my photo back under my holy ring and picked me; if it weren't for the fur everyone would have seen my blush. Instantly we were surrounded by the press I just hung there limply over Sakuyamon's arm and let her deal with the press. After twenty minutes the press still hadn't died down so she excused us and she flew us back to her house. On the way there she questioned me.

"So are you going to tell us what that was?"

"Like I said Muspellheim is one of the worlds in Norse mythology, it's the world of fire. Kentaurosamon's crossbow is named after it and a shield named after the world of ice, Niflheim. I can only tap into Muspellheim without being Kentaurosmon, truth be told I don't even know if it's possible for me to become Kentaurosmon under the circumstances."

"…"

"What?"

"Why was he after Kudamon?"

"Kudamon used to be Kentaurosmon and he was part of some organization or other. But he gave up his power and then saved my life. It seems they want him back so he can be Kentaurosmon again, why is beyond both of us though."

"Do you think they'll keep trying to take you back to the Digiworld?"

"Probably but they'll just be more annoying than anything else. When fighting other Digimon the option to delete them is always present. Truthfully I'm more bothered by human extremist groups. You have to very careful when fighting them and you can't kill them." I let out a yawn

"Will you be alright?"

"Yeah…I just won't be doing much other than sleeping and eating for next two days or so."

"I'll talk to the others about this and we'll work out a schedule so someone will be watching over you while you recover."

The next few minutes passed in silence. I don't know if it was from exhaustion or thought but a question came to my mind.

"Hey, Rika?" "Hm?" "Why are **you** so interested in helping and protecting me?"

"I…I don't really know," she said after a minute "it's just that, whenever I look at you I get this…this feeling."

"What kind of feeling?" I asked as I started to fall asleep

"A feeling that you are very important, like you're the key to something… I don't know."

"Goodnight Rika, goodnight Renamon." I said as I fell asleep just a few blocks from home.

Wow, sorry about the length but I looked at it 2 or 3 times to see if I could make into 2 chapters but I couldn't find a suitable place for a break

Next chapter will jump out of first person for some parts cause, like Alex said, he won't be able to do much other than eat and sleep for 2 days. Also be prepared someone else from Kudamon's past is going to show up but, what will her intentions be?


	4. Oh Brother

Disclaimer I don't own Digimon

I know this one is out quick but what can I say, my creativity was flowin so enjoy ^^

* * *

A lone Digimon made her way through the night following a trail invisible to everyone else. The full moon was bright overhead but still no one seemed to notice her as she passed in front of it. The trail led her to a large house in Shinjuku, the trail led all over the house. She grimaced the only way to find him would be to search room by room. Landing in the home's garden she quietly walked to the nearest door and silently opened it. Inside was a girl asleep on her futon, wrong room. The Digimon slid the door shut and walked down the hall looking for anything out of the ordinary. A door sealed with protective charms of digital origin, she slit the seal with one of the blades on her weapon and entered.

She breathed a sigh of relief at what she saw. On the futon, curled up asleep was Kudamon. She slid the door shut behind her. When she walked over to the futon she knelt down beside it. She lay her weapon down and reached out a tentative hand to touch the sleeping Digimon. Before she could touch him the door slid open and the girl from the other room rushed in, accompanied by a Renamon.

"Don't you dare lay a finger on him." The girl said

"Hush child, do want to wake him? I mean no harm please believe me." The Digimon said

The girl held up her D-Power "Dianamon, Mega level, it says that you're as dangerous as you are beautiful."

"Rika, I believe she speaks truthfully." Renamon said

"I don't trust her Renamon, but I trust you. Let's get something straight Dianamon, if you harm a single strand of his fur you won't live long enough to regret it."

"I would never harm the one who calls me"

"O…Onee-chan" Kudamon said sleepily in a dual voice opening his eyes "why are you looking at me like that Onee-chan, did…did I do something wrong?"

Dianamon put her hand on his head and pet him gently. "No Oto-chan," she said quietly "you have done nothing wrong, please, go back to sleep."

He smiled weakly and nuzzled her hand "Goodnight Onee-chan."

"Goodnight, my Oto-chan."

He fell back asleep and three people left the room. They went out into the garden were there was more space. Dianamon again laid her weapon aside and knelt down. Rika and Renamon stood there and eyed her warily. Rika was the first to speak.

"How do you know Alex and Kudamon?"

"Alex?...So, that's the name of the boy he saved. I don't know Alex, but Kudamon is my oto-chan."

"Please, explain what you mean." Renamon said "Digimon don't have brothers and sisters, or families for that matter."

"I met Kudamon six years ago. I was already the mon you see before you and had no interest in Rookies. However, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't seem to get rid of him. He was very childish and did many silly things but, somehow he always seemed to make me smile. One day we saw a pair of tamers, brother and sister, Kudamon heard them talking and began calling me Onee-chan. Soon I picked up the habit of calling him Oto-chan. On many occasions I could have let him be killed or have killed him myself, but I couldn't do it, no matter how hard I tried I could not kill him or let him die. We travelled for two years and then when the D-Reaper showed up he digivolved into Kentaurosmon but, he still called me Onee-chan, and we…we were still a family. When he gave up his power and became Kudamon again I couldn't understand why…but now…"

"It's alright," Rika said "they are and probably will continue to be two separate people, but it seems that their memories are becoming intertwined. It wouldn't surprise me if they know everything about each other now."

"It has only been eight and a half hours since he fought Magnamon, to think that you would show up in such a short amount of time is worrysome. However, what is more troubling is that you did so completely unnoticed." Renamon said

"I went through the permanent gate; I did not want to draw attention to myself by bioemerging."

"None the less the fact that you arrived so quickly confirms some of our suspicions. If we are going to protect Alex and Kudamon then we need to know as much about our enemy as possible." Rika said

"Very well, I will tell what I know on one condition." "Name it."

Dianamon took a steadying breath. "I want to stay here and look after my Oto-chan and, if you" "Done"

Dianamon blinked for a second "Just like that?" "Just like that."

"Thank you…I only know so much but I will tell you everything."

"Not now, tomorrow is early enough. Renamon and I are not the only ones involved in this. It'll be easier if you tell everyone when we get together tomorrow."

"So be it, then I will stay in his room and watch over him tonight."

Rika nodded her approval and went back inside. Dianamon stood and picked up her weapon. She went back into Alex's room and took up a defensive stance. Renamon stood there watching her from the shadows. If Renamon revealed herself she would be struck down in an instant. She phased back into Rika's room and found her sleeping peacefully once more. The morning would bring many things with it and Renamon knew a distressed Rumiko would be at the top of the list. It was not a situation she was looking forward to because Rumiko had not kept her promise to Rika.

~~~~POV change~~~~~

I was dreaming I had to be. I was watching myself on that day. That day was when everything changed. Kudamon was there standing beside me, I wasn't alone when I watched it this time. This time everything was clearer. That's when I started to remember, I had been standing in a digital field. The fog was thin and I could see clearly, even on that day.

I saw a Tamer and his Digimon were fighting an impossible battle, his Angemon couldn't hope to beat the Infermon. I had no time to think, I just acted. It was blistering hot but I felt frozen as I crossed the distance in a matter of seconds. From our position as observers we saw the ice breaking through my right arm, the cause of the scars. My skin paled and my fist connected with the Infermon's side. Ice rapidly spread across its surface and it shattered. The Tamer and his digimon fled before the ambulance arrived but when he was out of sight a red furred Kudamon came into sight.

I knew instantly who it was. I smiled, even before he saved my life he had been looking out for me. He curled up on my chest and I could see the color returning to my skin as his fur became its normal white. Once he was sure I was alive he left. I knew what this meant, he was the bridge to Muspellheim the world of fire and I was the bridge to Niflheim the world of ice.

~~~~POV change~~~~

It was 9:50 in the morning and the sun was shining brightly in the clear blue sky. Everyone was gathered in the garden talking to Dianamon. She was about to tell them what she knew of the threat that faced them and their new friends. She opened her mouth to speak but before she could they heard someone humming. Alex, in his human form walked out into the garden looking refreshed. Memory and a good night's sleep can work wonders but this was ridiculous. He waved cheerily at everyone as he walked up.

"Good morning Onee-chan," he said giving Dianamon a hug "good morning everyone. I'm going out for some exercise." He added

"You can't!" Rika shouted "You just got up there's no way you can be in any shape to do something like that!"

He broke of his hug and shook his head "IN this world of nothingness that rises out of an endless dream, it seems as though our beloved desires will lose, but even with these unreliable wings, covered in images that tend to stay I'm sure we can fly." he said in a double voice

Then he jumped clear over the house and its outer wall. Everyone stood there stunned at the impossible feat he just performed. It was possible for some Digimon like Dianamon or Sakuyamon. But, for a human such a feat should be beyond their physical capabilities. Surprisingly it was Kazu that brought everyone back to reality.

"We have to go after him!" He said as he ran and climbed onto Gaurdromon

Rika, Takato, and Henry biomerged into Sakuyamon, Gallantmon, and MegaGargomon. Dianamon took off over the roof tops chasing the trail of energy Alex was leaving in his wake. There was no way he should have been able to move as fast as he was. She managed to catch sight of him and saw that he was jumping from building side to building side passing over the busy city streets. Again this was something that she **knew** was completely impossible for a normal human. That's when she felt a prickling on the back of her neck as a digital field sprang up some 500 feet ahead of Alex.

He landed in the middle of the road and jumped again. She watched in awe as ice began covering his right arm. The Digimon in the field had finished bioemerging and a strong breeze picked up blowing away the fog. Standing in the center of the field was a SkullMeramon who immediately began attacking cars. Alex was on a direct course for it.

"Imperial Glacier!" Alex yelled as he swung his right fist forward. Ice began shooting from his fist. It was not chunks and chips but a solid mass. SkullMeramon didn't stand a chance. He was soon completely incased in miniature glacier and when it shattered, so did he.

"How did he do that?" Dianamon looked over her shoulder and saw Sakuyamon bounding over the rooftops to her left.

"I don't know, but if I had to guess I'd say Alex is the bridge to Niflheim the world of ice. I already know Kudamon is the bridge to Muspellheim which is the world of fire." Dianamon said to her

They landed on the road next to Alex. He was completely oblivious to them and was busily checking his right arm. As they drew within arm's length of each other he looked up. He smiled happily at seeing them. They stood there and waited for everyone to arrive.

"I only won because I got the drop on him. He wasn't expecting to **be** attacked so soon, let alone by a human." Alex said

"How did you know he was coming? We could tell until just before the digital field formed" MegaGargomon asked

"I'm a bridge between three worlds, as soon as something attempts to force its way into one of them I can tell where it's at." He said simply

"What do you mean a bridge between worlds?" Gallantmon asked him

"Not here," Dianamon cut in "it would be best if went back to Rika's to discuss this turn of events."

~~~~POV change~~~~

As we were leaving the press began showing up. They would be just in time to make the ten o'clock news bulletins. I could practically hear the constant clicking of the camera shutters behind us. My senses seemed to be some much clearer now almost like they were stronger. We made it back to Rika's home and the first thing I did was eat. From my seat in the kitchen I was able to hear Dianamon, my Onee-chan, speaking clearly.

"The group of Digimon that are after Alex and Kudamon are known as The Guardians. Though why we called ourselves that is beyond me. I did hear what it was we were guarding though, I heard Magnamon call it the Quadrant Gate. The only ones besides Magnamon to actually see this 'Gate' were Oto-chan, Crusadermon, Alphamon, and Omnimon. Of the five the only one to actually go **through** the gate was Omnimon, he wasn't around half the time because he was on the other side of it. Oto-chan was usually guarding the gate but he would always set up pranks to amuse himself when someone came to relieve him. He may have been a Mega physically but mentally."

"I heard that!"

Onee-chan giggled at my outburst. "Well you're not denying it Oto-chan. Anyway on more than one occasion he was able to see through the gate when Omnimon returned. That's probably one reason they want him back. The other reason has to do with Alex. The two of them are bridges to a pair of supernatural worlds. Alex is the bridge to the world of ice and mist Niflheim and Oto-chan is the bridge to the world of fire Muspellheim."

"We figured that out last night." I said

"How?"

"I…I had a dream…a dream about the day I died. As it turns out I wasn't hit by anything what hurt my arm and killed me was…well…me. What you saw me do today, I did that on the day I died. But…I couldn't control it and it tore up my arm and started to freeze me from the inside. Then Kudamon came and used fire from Muspellheim to close the gate I was using and thaw out the parts of my body that had frozen. The problem was that he had to wait about half an hour before he could do that which is why I died."

"Can you tell us more about the Gate itself and what's on the other side of it?" Jeri asked

"I can but it's not much."

"Every little bit helps."

"Well…I couldn't see distinct things just silhouettes but I could hear things being said on the other side when the Gate was open. I'll start with what the exactly the Gate is. It's a way to get from the area ruled by one sovereign to an area ruled by another. The Gate we were headquartered at was the one between Zhuqiaomon's area and Azulongmon's area. Whenever the gate was open I could see lots of Digimon and on more than one occasion I saw the silhouettes of several humans. Those words I spoke before I left earlier, I heard someone singing them in a song the last time I was by the gate when it was open. The day I gave up my powers and saved Alex."

"Wait a second," Rika said "you heard those words in a song?"

"Yeah, why?" "Follow me"

She led us into the family room. She turned on the TV and switched it over to the input channel. She searched through the cabinet beneath the TV and pulled out a DVD. She turned on the DVD player and put the disk in. She scrolled through the menus until she found what she was looking for and pushed play. I had no idea why she was doing this until a song started playing, a **VERY** familiar song.

"Th-that's the song I heard, but how?"

"This brings up more questions than it answers." Kenta said

"It means one of two things. It either means everything in the shows is and was real, or that the humans that normally have access to Azulongmon's area have Digimon stuff in their world." Rika said

"Hmm…let me see some stills of their Digimon and I might be able to determine for sure which it is."

"Have at it, we'll be outside"

"Got it, oh and don't let me sit here too long." "We won't"

* * *

Gotcha didn't I. Bet ya'll thought the Digimon would be Crusadermon. Unfortunately I know basically nothing about Data Squad other than the names of some of the Digimon. No another Gallantmon will not be appearing because Guilmon is one of a kind.

Later ^^;


	5. Family Matters

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon

* * *

The next few days should've consisted of watching the Digimon Adventure series, its movies, and the sequel series Adventure 02. However, after watching the opening credits I skipped straight to the movies and then went back and watched the last 2 episodes. There was no mistake I had seen the outlines of those Digimon through the Gate. After watching some of 02 I added those Digimon and their partners to the list as well, it was a bit unsettling to me. It was now around 4 PM and I was dragged outside so Onee-chan and I could be shown the city. Of course I insisted I travel as a Digimon for convenience reasons. As soon as we stepped outside we were assaulted by the press.

They wanted to know EVERYTHING about me and Onee-chan, of course the only answer the got from us was me flashing my picture of Michael and letting him know where I was staying. As for me I found out some things about the Tamers; Takato and Jeri were in the fourth year of their relationship, Kenta and Kazu were single again, Henry was dating Alice, Suzie refused insisted here life was none of the public's business, and to top it all off Ryo and Rika's relationship to one another was and always would be one of older brother and younger sister. Try as we might the press refused to let us move until Onee-chan's patience ran out and she threatened to kill the next reporter or paparazzi that refused to move or tried to follow us, woo boy you should've seen them run! We made our way to The Park, yes THE PARK were the Tamers still hung out and where the permanent portal to the Digital World in Shinjuku was set up. From there we made our way to the Tamers' old school and then went to the restaurant owned by Jeri's family for dinner, the food was amazing to say the least.

On our way back to Rika's we were swarmed once again by the press, unfortunately they were all different people and so wouldn't leave us alone. On top of that were would be Tamers and fans of The Tamers, the would-bes were the worst for Onee-chan and me, her because she neither had nor wanted a Tamer and me because my D-Power disappears when I become a Digimon. That's when I was grabbed up by someone and before I could protest I was bound, gagged and being carried away. That's the only problem with changing back and forth; in order to become large the space I was going to be taking up needed to free of obstructions. I got a quick look and my captor and groaned he had brown hair and was wearing a necklace with the Zero Unit symbol hanging from it. It meant he was a member of J.A.V.A. Japanese Assisting Virtual Animals, their "assisting" consisted of little more than kidnapping animal-like Digimon and "freeing" them by sending them back to the Digital World. In short they were PETA but for Digimon, and most Digimon found them to be a nuisance and currently that included myself.

We decided not to just burn through the ropes and instead let this weirdo take us to the local base. He heard my groan and said "its okay, you'll be free soon enough." I tried to talk and he pulled down my gag. "Damn right we will be and you'll probably be lying dead or dying in a ditch somewhere. When Onee-chan hey mmphh mmmph." He pulled my gag back up with a concerned look on his face.

"You poor thing," he said sadly "that **Tamer**" he spat the word "must have done something to your mind. But don't worry we can fix it and make you good as new."

I shuddered when he said that, it wasn't so much the words as the way they were said. So casually like it was the most normal thing in the world and happened every day. I didn't have much time to think about it because we shortly arrived at the local base, which was a large warehouse complete with skylight. When he brought me into the main room I saw three other people; a young blonde woman, a brunette woman and a black hair man. They all immediately began congratulating my captor in his "success", oh if only they knew what would probably happen to them. The entire time I glared daggers at them…well until they scanned me and got confused.

"Kudamon, Holy Beast Digimon, Type…that's not right." Said the blonde

"What?" asked the black haired guy

"It says this little guy here is Typeless. But we've scanned Kudamon before, they're vaccine type."

"Typeless? That's impossible all Digimon have a type, sorry little friend but we can't set you free until we figure out why you don't have a type."

I started laughing so hard that I fell over and started rolling on the floor because I was still bound by ropes. They argued over my lack of type and possible causes of it for the next five minutes whilst I continued to laugh my ass off at their utter stupidity, of course I didn't have type Kudamon and I share a HUMAN body that can become a Digimon body and humans don't have a Type. Blondey was the first to notice my rolling around, she proceeded to pick me up and then pine over me thinking I was suffering a panic attack or something. She moved to undo my gag but then got into an argument with man who brought me in to be "assisted", whilst they were all busy arguing I noticed a shadow appear on the ground. I looked up and saw Onee-chan standing on the skylight, I proceed to drop my head to the side and close my eyes. When I opened one she nodded to me understanding the silent signal. The argument over Blondey proceeded to undo my gag and tossed it aside; I grinned like a madman and started giggling.

"It's alright we find a way to fix this and make you better." She said sweetly

"I told your friend over that when Onee-chan got here she'd make you all sorry for what you're doing to me."  
Those poor deluded fools didn't even know what hit them as Onee-chan shattered the skylight. As she dropped into their midst she shouted "Goodnight Moon" and the Goodnight Sister on her legs glowed softly. I had closed my eyes so I wouldn't be put to sleep like everyone else. Unfortunately so did Blondey. Before she could even turn around Onee-chan's weapon was at her throat.

"Untie him."  
"You don't understand we're doing this for his own good."

"He's not a normal Digimon, now untie him."

"I know we scanned him, the poor thing has no Type. But we can"  
"Look either untie me or set me down" "setting down I can do."

She slowly lowered me to the ground to avoid getting cut by Onee-chan's staff blade. Once she stood back up I closed my eyes and reached out for the power of Muspellheim. I opened my eyes slowly and saw the look of shock on the woman's face as the ropes binding me burned away. I exhaled slowly stepping away from the gate in my mind. It was amazing, in order to use the power I just had to picture the gate and myself standing next to, I wonder if I could control both at the same time? I shook out my arms and legs to the feeling back into them. The entire time the blonde continued to stare at me.

"For the record I could've done that at any time."

"You…you're the Digimon from the park the other day, the one who was with that EVIL Sakuyamon."

I changed into my human form and gave her a hard slap across the face, I WAS PISSED. How dare she! SHE, who partakes in STEALING Digimon away from their Tamers, people they consider to be friends and in some cases more than friends. And then go around calling one of the people who saved the world evil when the truth was that she was the evil one. Not Rika, not Renamon, but this blonde haired idiot standing right here in front of me. She stared at me shocked at both the fact that I had turned into a human and that I had slapped her. I could tell right away I had hit her pretty hard and she would definitely have a bruise on her face.

"Onee-chan, we're leaving. Just leave this hypocritical bitch here."

"Very well Oto-chan, but should I tie her up first or something?"

"No…I she tries to follow us then **I** will kill her myself."

Onee-chan removed her weapon from the girl's throat and walked to the door. I changed back into Kudamon and noticed I now stood at three feet tall instead of three and a half feet. Oh well just meant I could be more cutesy as Digimon now, I jumped up onto Onee-chan's back and then draped myself across her shoulders. We walked out of that accursed place and made our way back to the main group where we quickly explained what had happened to me. Neither Rika nor Renamon seemed the least bit bothered by what the girl had said about them being "evil". It seems that J.A.V.A had recently launched a failed smear campaign against The Tamers and all Tamers in general. No wonder it didn't bother them at all.

Everyone noticed my loss of height and was worried about it, in truth I wasn't bothered by it in the least. But they insisted we go see Henry's dad so he could check on me and make SURE I was alright, they wouldn't change their minds so I eventually gave in. We changed directions and started heading to the Wong family's penthouse apartment. As it turns out all of the Monster Makers were now receiving payment of some sort on everything Digimon related and had also been given positions in their countries government as leaders of Digimon research and relations boards and such. I was nervous to say the least; I mean I WAS getting to meet one of the Monster Makers. When we got to the apartment I realized just how BIG a penthouse was, the only thing that really caught my eye was a hologram projector in the middle of the main room and the man who was fiddling with it. When he saw me and Onee-chan he looked us up and down before offering us his hand.

"I'm Janyu Wong." Henry's father introduced himself "Henry's already told me about you Alex, but who is this Digimon that you're with is?"

Onee-chan and I shook the proffered hand "This is my Onee-chan, Dianamon, and no she's not a biomerged human. She's a natural Mega level Digimon."

"It is an honor to meet you Janyu, I am Dianamon."

"The honor is all mine, now then Alex. I'm not fully qualified to examine you so I called up someone…someone I'm quite sure you'll be happy to see. You can come out now!"

From around the corner walked a man who stood about six feet six inches tall. He had medium length brown-blonde hair that was messily well kept. He was wearing a pair of khaki pants and an orange collared shirt. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't so much that I found him as it was he found me.

"MICHAEL!" I jumped on him transforming mid jump and tackling him.

"Hey Alex, I saw you on the news this morning. That's a neat trick that you've picked up since I last saw you. So are you going to introduce me to everyone…" His voice trailed off when he caught sight of Onee-chan and I quickly let him up.

"Diana!" he said holding his arms out for a hug

"Michael!" she said giving him a hug "what's it been two weeks?"

"Two and half, but who's counting? I guess you found him then, your 'little brother'?"

"Yes…at the time…" "No, I didn't know it was him at the time."

"Ummm….?" I started

"Later, Oto-chan, we'll explain later."

"Okay, anyway this is Rika Nonaka, Henry and Suzie Wong, Takato Matsuki, Jeri Katou, Kenta Kitagawa, Kazu Shioda, and their partners Renamon, Terriermon, Lopmon, Guilmon, Marine Angemon, and Guardromon."

"Speaking of partners," Janyu said "I have a surprise for you Jeri." He handed her a Digiegg "It took some doing, but thanks to Beelzemon and the other Monster Makers we were able to extract Leomon's data from Beelzemon and reconstruct it memories and all. In a few days that Digiegg will hatch and Leomon will begin his life cycle again, I don't know if he'll stay as Leomon or as his rookie form but either way we managed to get him back for you. Before you leave I need to make some alterations to your D-Power so that you will be able to biomerge."

"Th-th-thank you, thank you so very very much!" Jeri said excitedly accepting the egg

"It's not me you should be thanking but Beelzemon, it was his idea we just helped him accomplish it."

"Oh…well if I see him again, I will be sure to thank him…"

Rika cleared her throat "Jeri, while we're all very happy that you'll be getting your partner back we really need to have Alex examined."

"That's part of why I'm here," Michael said "I'm the only one who knows how the process of merging Alex and Kudamon was done and I'm a doctor for humans so I can assisted in the analysis of his biological aspects."

"So…Michael, what are you doing here" I asked him

"Janyu actually contacted me; I came over to discuss the process I used to merge you and Kudamon. But I'm guessing ya'll are here for a different reason right?"

"Yea my Kudamon form is now three feet tall instead of three and a half like I used to be, thing is it happened in about 10 ten seconds while I was human."

"I see," Janyu said "well I'll need to hook you up to the scanner and analyze you in both forms, and then we'll be able to find out more about you."

I was hooked up to the scanner as everyone crowded around Jeri to congratulate her on the return of her partner. I smiled happily if anyone deserved that sort of happiness it was her, especially everything she had been through. I remember hearing about it on the news; first she ran away from home, it took a failed suicide attempt before she was finally given something she really needed…help. She began attending therapy and it turns out she blamed herself for a lot of things that had happened. In her second to last session all The Tamers and their Digimon came and told her that none of it was her fault and that they never blamed her for instant, this included a full emotional breakdown of everyone and Beelzemon who gave a very heartfelt apology to Jeri and said that he still hasn't forgiven himself for his actions. After that she became the kind cheerful girl she was before it all began and two weeks later she and Takato began dating and had been ever since.

"All set," Janyu said snapping me out of my thoughts "now let's start the scan and look for your…Digi…core…"his voice trailed off

"What?" I asked

"Change into Kudamon, let me put this data off to the side." I did as he asked and received an even more confused look. "Michael, did you do this?"

"I don't know much about how the process works on the digital level, only biological level, but I suppose it's possible."

"Dad," Henry said with concern "what is it?"

"I'll show you." Janyu tapped a few keys on the laptop and the holo-projector came to life. What it showed was a pair of cubes inside spheres. The spheres overlapped to the point where both cubes were in the same area and their edges were touching. One cube was blue and the other was red. I had a guess as to what they were but it was just a guess.

"What are we seeing here?"

"Your Digicore data. Alex yours is the blue one and Kudamon's is the red one. The spheres are a representation of the data that makes up your physical bodies. It looks like you are partially biomerged with Kudamon which explains why you can change between forms and why you're not a Mega level Digimon. Since the Digicores are touching it explains why you and Kudamon have shared memories and increased awareness of what is going on around you when you're human. As for the height loss it just seems that your Kudamon body is becoming more natural."

"So it **is** nothing to worry about, I knew it."

"Correct, although by technical standards from what we have analyzed on biomerged Digimon you should **technically** be a Mega."

"I can answer that one." Michael piped up "I know about the Biomerge Digivolution process and based my process on it. The key difference is that it doesn't completely convert the Tamer into data energy particles. That's why it looks so similar **to** a biomerge, because it is basically just an incomplete one."

"So will he ever be able to digivolve to Ultimate or Mega?" Rika asked

"Maybe, but remember, with each digivolution a Digicore becomes larger in size. In Alex's case I think they just become denser and slightly larger with each of his digivolutions. However I don't have any idea what to expect if and when he does reach Ultimate and Mega."

"Well if he's ever going to reach Ultimate, then we need to get him more cards so he has a better chance at getting a Blue one. Right now his only card is a Digivolution card that his brother gave him."

"I didn't know J.P. gave you a card before you left."

"Yeah it saved my life while I was in the Digital World."

"Yea but Rika's right." Kazu said "If you only have one card then even with your umm…'unique' ability you'll be in trouble if you fight a large group or someone who is a lot stronger than you."

"Well, why don't we each give him a card that way he'll have eight cards instead of one." Suzie said pointedly while searching through her cards "Here you can have this one."

Suzie gave me an Alias card and everyone immediately began searching through their cards for one to give me. I was a little stunned I didn't expect something like this to happen at all. After searching around for a few minutes everyone gave me one of their cards. Rika gave me a speed card, no surprise there considering how useful it is. Takato gave me a Hyper Wing card; it was pretty common knowledge that it was one of his favorites. Kenta gave me a Stamina card said I'd find it more useful than most because I was basically using one battery for two bodies, can't argue with that one. Kazu gave me a Hyperchip, said something about it giving me an extra edge in a tight spot. Unsurprisingly Jeri gave me a Leomon card, she had become quite well known as a formidable player and Leomon considered her signature card. Henry gave me…well he gave me Training Grips.

"I know there's a good reason for this card right Henry, I can use it to make myself stronger if I'm sitting around the house."

"That and you can also throw it onto another Digimon and it'll constrict their movements." He replied

"Here…" Michael said giving me a card "I saw some people playing it in the break room one day and figured since my cousin **is** one might as well learn about the card game." It was WarGreymon's Brave Shield.

"I also have one for you Oto-chan." Onee-chan held out her card. "I found it one day while I was…well looking for you." She chuckled the last few words. "There will be times when I'm not close by to protect you; I hope you will always think of me when you use it."

It was Agumon's Frozen Wind, very fitting since Onee-chan can control water and ice. Then I caught sight of the clock and realized just what time it was. We left the Katou's restaurant at about 6:30 and it was now 8 o'clock. I looked around to see that everyone else had just noticed the clock as well. I looked at Michael who shook his head.

"Sorry Alex but I don't have enough space in my apartment for you to stay with me."

"That's alright he can stay at my house as long as he needs to." Rika quickly said

"Thanks Rika."

We said our goodbyes and everyone went their separate ways with Takato escorting Jeri back home of course. As we made our way back to Rika's home I carefully put my new cards into my wallet alongside the Digivolution card that my brother gave me. We walked in silence for awhile just enjoying the night and lack of people bothering us. We made it to the house without any trouble. We quietly slipped in the front door so as not to disturb anyone.

"Alex, if you're going to be fighting with us then you're going to need me training. You can start by sparing with Renamon tomorrow morning, both in human and Digimon form. After that we'll head to the school and get you registered for classes, hopefully we get you into the same ones as us and then we can spend the rest of the day in the park training you in proper use of your new cards."

"School, when do you start school?"

"Next week, don't worry you have to sets of memories so I'm sure Kudamon can pick up if you slack off."

"Hey!" I said giving her playful push

"Where have you been young lady?" Said a voice from the darkened family room "Do you have any idea what time it is?" a lamp turned on revealing Rumiko sitting in a chair hands folded in her lap. "Also you will be doing no training tomorrow. Instead you will be going, with me, to a photo shoot in the studio, BOTH of you."

"But mother!"

"No buts Rika! It's high time you began acting like the young woman that you are. It's time for you to put away the cards and stop going out to fight those Wild Things or whatever you call them. After you came home with Alex so exhausted last night I made my choice."

"Your choice! It's my life to live not yours why can't you just accept that mother?"

Rumiko sighed "The truth is I don't really like Digimon I only put up your friends Digimon because they're your friends. I tolerate Renamon because she works so hard to protect you. She acts not unlike a mother protecting their son or daughter." I alone noticed Renamon briefly flinch at that comment

"Ms. Rumiko" I began

"Not now you…you **thing**! I don't know **what** you are but stay away from **my** daughter!" I made to move forward but Onee-chan grabbed me by the arms and gave me a warning look.

"**Alex** is not a thing he is a person and a Digimon and more importantly he's **my** friend same goes Dianamon she may not be human but in the short amount of time I've spent with her can easily say that she's my friend to."

They continued to argue and I became angrier and angrier. That's when it started. I felt a chilling breeze across my face. I heard the sound of waves slapping against the shore. I could suddenly smell the salt of ocean air. Then I collapsed to the sand in a heap and passed out.

* * *

Answer time: yes my brother's real name is J.P. but its short for something. Yes, if my cousin sees someone he hasn't seen in a while that is how he acts. Yes my cousin is actually becoming a doctor  
he is currently working on his graduate school stuff since he finished his initial 4 years of college and graduated from that already.

later ^^;


	6. Protecting Light

Disclaimer: Once again I don't own Digimon

* * *

I slowly came to and realized something; I was in the wrong place…**definitely** the wrong place. Then I felt soft fur on the back of my neck. Where ever we were Kudamon and I had separate bodies again, but I could still feel his strength. It seemed more like having two bodies and one mind rather than truly being two separate people. I stood up much to the surprise of Kudamon and took in my surroundings. We were in some sort of home but everything, even us, had a dull grey shade to it and a light fog seemed to permeate everything. I heard the door open and wiped around to see someone standing there. I recognized her from the sequel series, it was Hikari Yagami. Her bust and butt had filled out into a proper figure now and she was probably about 16, yet she still wore the same clothes right down to the colors.

"Thank God you're awake," she said in a relieved voice "Gatomon and I were starting to worry about you. Um… When did that Digimon get here?" she asked pointing at Kudamon

"I've been here the whole time" he said in voice that was a cross of both of ours "I just didn't have a body till a few minutes ago."

"Hey don't go scaring her by saying crap like that." After I said it I quickly clutched my throat, my voice, my voice was the same as Kudamon's

_No matter how true it is don't say stuff like that._

"_Okay fine I won't say stuff like that."_ Kudamon said and thought to me at the same time

"Y-y-your voices" Kari said with a fearful expression on her face "wh-why do you have the same voice?"

"Because we used to share a body." Kudamon said as I pulled out my wallet.

"To make a long story **very** short I was merged with him to save his life."

I breathed a sigh of relief after seeing that all ten of my cards were still there. I put my wallet in one pocket and my cards in the other. I pulled out my D-power and gave it a quick once over before I noticed Hikari staring at it intently. I knew I would have to talk to her about it eventually but for now I just clipped it onto my belt. She opened her mouth to speak but I abruptly cut her off.

"We've answered two of your questions now it's time you do the same for us; who are you and where are we?"

_-But we already know who she is._

_If we called her by name without her telling us what it is she'd freak._

Kudamon sighed_ –Humans_

"And just what is **that** supposed to mean huh? Technically you and I are **neither** human **nor** Digimon." I flicked his nose and yelled in surprise as I felt it on my nose to. This along with my outburst earned me a confused look from Hikari.

"I'm Hikari Yagami, and this" she said as Gatomon entered the room "is my partner Gatomon. As to where we are well…we're in the Dark World home of the Dark Ocean. I don't know how you or I got here but we need to find a way to get out and quickly."

"Since Hikari has introduced us why, don't the two of you introduce yourselves?" Gatomon said

"I'm Alex." Kudamon said tapping a paw against my shoulder "And I'm Kudamon." I said indicting him "Wait maybe it's the other way around..." We both said

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Never better, so you said this is the Dark World right?" Hikari nodded "Well then the best way to get out is to go up."

"How? I don't have my D-Terminal and my D-3 is still in my bag back in the real world."

"Let's go outside and I'll show you how we're getting out of here."

The four of us went outside and I looked around. No wonder I was called the Dark World. Everything was so bleak and hopeless looking. I pulled my D-Power off my belt and gripped it tightly. No matter how bad it looked here I had my cards, cards given to me by close friends. And I had Kudamon, my best friend, my partner, and a part of me.

"What is that?"

"This is my D-power, its sorta like your Digivice except it has a few special features." I pulled out my Digivolution card "Like this for example."

"**Digimodify!...Digivolution Activate!**"

"**Kudamon digivolve TO…**"

I could feel the energy surging through Kudamon as he was enveloped in the cocoon of data. I felt my hands tingling and looked down to see them changing. They stayed the same size but took on a brown tint and became paw like. I could feel my feet changing as well. Then I felt a weight upon my shoulders and say the rope around my neck. To me this was extremely cool I never would have thought that something like this would happen if I used any cards and Kudamon and somehow became separate again, but for poor Kari it must have been terrifying.

" **Reppamon!**"

"Is it just me or do you look…bigger than when we were combined?"

"Don't know, don't care, you said the fastest way out of here is up right? So does this mean we're gonna try out Takato's Hyper Wing card?" I nodded my head in response

"I don't think you'll have time to slash another card." Hikari said in a trembling voice

"Why not?"

She pointed and I saw a bunch of shadowy creatures approaching from the beach. They looked sort of like Digimon. I pointed my D-Power at them but no data came up. I cursed in English under my breath. That caught every ones' attention including my own; I had completely forgotten that I had been speaking Japanese up until now. Hyper wing would have to wait I swapped it out for Speed card Rika had given me.

"**Digimodify!...Speed Activate!**" I could feel a rush of energy flooding me

"Reppamon go get 'em!"

He charged forward and was in their midst before they realized what was going on. He lashed out with his tail deleting a few right of the bat. Hikari made to protest but just shook my head. As much she didn't want to admit it the only way we would get out of here was if we destroyed our enemies and we both knew that. One of the creatures had broken off from the group and was heading straight for Hikari but I cut it off.

"Move aside human we have no business with you. We only desire the Child of Light." It said to me

"Not a chance creep!"

"Alex don't!" Hikari yelled

I didn't even have to try to reach the power of Niflheim. It just came straight to me but this time it didn't coat my arm with ice. I could tell, no, I could **feel** that I was becoming able to control this power properly. The creature brought its hand up to slash at me. With my Speed card still active it had no chance I brought back my fist back like I did with SkullMeramon.

"Imperial Glacier!"

My fist collided with the creature freezing it solid and shattering it in an instant. The other creatures instantly backed off and began retreating towards the ocean. I knew better than to follow, they would have the advantage on the beach where their numbers could quickly be replenished. Reppamon fell back to where we were standing, he and I could both sense it something was coming…something big. A large monster emerged from the water nothing more than a silhouette but I knew what it was. I couldn't believe I didn't remember earlier, this place was in one of the episodes which made that massive creature.

"Dagomon."

"So, the young Gatekeeper knows of me."

"What's a Gatekeeper?"

"One who acts as a bridge and guard to a supernatural world. Now move aside young Gatekeeper, the Child of Light will be my bride. With her help a more powerful generation will arise from my Dark Ocean." "No."

He swung one of his arms and sent Reppamon and I flying across the ground. Hikari ran to my side desperately trying to stay away from the monstrous Dagomon. She helped knelt over me while Gatomon somehow managed to help Reppamon to his feet. This bastard was strong so I would just have to play it smart and hope we could get away. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the first card I touched, Onee-chan's card, Agumon's Frozen Wind.

"Alex you don't have to do this." Hikari said "I'll…I'll give myself up to him." She turned to face Dagomon "I will go with you if you leave the others alone!" she said defiantly

"Hmm an interesting proposal, but meaningless I will kill them and you will be mine regardless!"

He reached forward to grab her and I instinctively slammed my left fist on the ground out of frustration. A pillar of magma shot up between the two of them. I looked at my left arm and notice the constant steam rising off of it. Somehow, I was channel the power of Muspellheim and Niflheim at the same time. I still held my D-Power in my left hand and it was completely undamaged.

"**Drop dead**." I shakily stood up "You're not touching her and I'm gonna make sure of that!" I looked at my card again it had become a Blue card "Thank you Onee-chan." I said quietly

"**Digimodify!…Matrix Digivolution Activate!**"

"**Reppamon Matrix Digivolve TO!**"

I felt an enormous surge of power as before my eyes both Reppamon and I changed. My right arm became covered in a brassard as my shirt turned to fur. I felt the rope around my neck spin and slide onto my back where it became four dragonfly like wings. My left arm stopped steaming and my hand turned red and took on the appearance of glowing volcanic rock. I felt a mask form that was resting just above my face and I knew it would mirror the one worn by.

"**Chirinmon!**"

"You made one fatal flaw you squid headed son of a bitch! I **never** give up! I'm too stupid to and it's way too much fun pissing off **bastards** **like** **you!**" I said emphasizing the last three words

I didn't even have to swipe a Speed card to move at blinding speeds. Dagomon swiped at me, I brought up my right arm to block and saw it had been covered with a blade of ice which sliced through Dagomon's arm with easy. Chirinmon put Hikari and Gatomon on his back and took off, flying straight up into the air. Dagomon reached up with its good hand to try and grab them out of the air but I took flight and passed by his arm before it was even fully extended. I flew back past it at an equally blinding speed slashing it apart in several places before pushing off the ground and quickly catching back up with Chirinmon, Hikari, and Gatomon as we climbed above the clouds. Dagomon was persistent though and reached up to try and grab us.

"I said! Hands OFF! Magma Pillar!"

I made a quick jab with my left arm launching a massive column of fire and magma straight into Dagomon's rising face. He went downtime this and **didn't** try to get back up. I settled into a slower flight speed alongside the others, Hikari looked relieved to be above the clouds and heading towards the light above us. I watched her look from me to Chirinmon and back several times while I practiced forming and dissipating the ice sword. I pulled down my mask just to try it and almost immediately put it back up. What I had seen was…well what Chirinmon had seen. I looked at my right hand and saw that the card had become normal again so I slipped it into my pocket before examining my D-Power. Even after being at the ignition point of a massive pillar of fire and magma the thing was still undamaged. I slipped it back into my pocket and landed on Chirinmon's back facing Hikari and Gatomon.

"What just happened?" Hikari asked

"It seems that even with separate bodies I still get stronger if he digivolves. As for the fire and ice, well know we know I'm a Gatekeeper and I guess one of the perks of that is being able to access the power of whatever supernatural world you're guarding."

"Why don't we tell you our whole story it'll take awhile before get into the area that'll start sending us back to our worlds." "What do you mean worlds?"

"You and I are from different version of earth, in your version you exist and in my version I exist that's about all I know of it. So do you want me to answer your questions about me or not?"

Chirinmon and I spent the next twenty minutes telling Kari and Gatomon everything that had happened to us. This included everything from my death and revival. We told them about the circumstances of our arrival in Shinjuku. This included everything we knew about The Guardians. When we mentioned Omnimon she frowned.

"That's odd, we've been spending time near a gate in our Digital World and on the occasions I was there when Omnimon went through I saw a large Digimon on the other side. I guess that was you right?"

"Makes sense since I was seeing ya'll through my side. I can't believe I never thought of that before."

We continued talking and finished with what was going on right before we woke up with them in the Dark World. Not a moment too soon. Right after I told her I woke up here our bodies began to become staticy.

"Remember don't tell **anyone** about me. I know you don't like lying but it's for the best they don't know. Neither you nor I know who we can trust among the human's in your world."

"All right, it'll be difficult but, I know I can do it." she said with an enthusiastic smile "And Alex?"

"Hmm?" she gave me a quick kiss on the cheek "Thank you for not giving up on me." She said as she phased back into her world. I grinned happily. I knew that we wouldn't be going back into our world through an established gate. No we would be bioemerging. It would be a **great** time to have some fun. That was something to look forward to at least.

"Hey if I ever come back here let's promise ourself something." "What?"

"That I'll take a page from The Covenant's book and burn this place till its glass." I said seriously "Promise?"

"Promise."

* * *

We'll see more of other people later, hope ya'll like what's happening. If not then I hope you keep reading anyway cause I don't write to an audience, just for fun.  
Next chapter starts in 3rd person with someone else.

Later ^^;


	7. Return from the Dark World

Gonna start naming chapters now.

Disclaimer: Once again I don't own Digimon, but if I did there would be more Tamer's stuff...like a sequal series

* * *

It was 7AM and Rika's phone was ringing. She rolled over sleepily recalling the events of the past few hours with annoyance and a bit of anxiety. Last night she had learned that her mother couldn't stand Digimon and she put up a few of them only because they were her friends or protected her. Their argument had been heating up when her new friend Alex started to fall over and disappeared before he even hit the floor. Dianamon immediately left to look for him leaving Rika and Renamon alone with her mother. Rika had gone to her room and began crying, she wanted to know why her mother hated Digimon, it just didn't make any sense, and what happened to Alex? As Rika began to fall asleep still sobbing she felt a soft paw, not a hand but a paw, begin gently stroking her back and then she heard the song. She had heard this soothing lullaby before when she was having nightmares or trouble sleeping but she never knew that her real mother was **not** the one singing it.

"Hello?" She sleepily answered the phone

"Rise and shine Rika, I apologize for the hour but its urgent." It was Mitsuo Yamaki the leader of Hypnos whose function had become digital-real world relations including tracking bioemergences.

"Well, let's hear it."

"We've picked up a bioemerging Digimon, it's the strongest one we've seen in months. This leads us to believe it's either a very strong Ultimate or a weak Mega. I decided that it would be best to contact **all** of The Tamers to give the best chance of dealing with this quickly and with minimal damage, however the strangest thing about it is **where** its bioemerging."

"What do you mean?

"It's bioemerging in the same place that SkullGreymon did two days ago. I'll let you go now so you can get there and deal with it."

"Thanks for the heads up Yamaki, I'll get there ASAP. Oh and tell Riley I said hi."

"I will good luck."

"Thanks." Rika said hanging up the phone.

Rika quickly got dressed in a pair of black of shorts and a plain red t-shirt with red socks. She put on her belt and clipped her D-Power on one side and her deck on the other. She made her way into the kitchen to grab a bagel and a bottle of water. She munched on the bagel as she pulled on her shoes when someone behind her cleared their throat. Rika glanced over her shoulder at her furious mother, ignoring her Rika finished putting on her shoes and the rest of her breakfast before walking towards the door. Rumiko cleared her throat again, louder this time, she knew Rika understood the unspoken message but didn't understand why she was ignoring it. Renamon appeared beside Rika and opened the front door for her.

"Where do you think you're going young lady, out in public and dressed like that?"

"To help, to protect people that can't protect themselves."

"You **are** staying here; we leave for the shoot in an hour."

"No **mother**," Rika practically spat the word "**you** leave for the photo shoot in an hour. If we've finished dealing with whatever this is by that time then **I** will be hanging out with my friends somewhere." Rika pulled her D-Power off her belt and stepped outside.

"**Biomerge Activate!**" Rika and Renamon were bathed in a bright light

"**Renamon Biomerge TO!...Sakuyamon!**"

Sakuyamon took off heading for the street that SkullGreymon and Alex had appeared on two days ago. Inside Sakuyamon Rika shook her head, it was hard to believe that that it really **had** been two days since Alex showed up and seemingly turned the world on its head. He was a dead man who was alive; he was a Digimon and yet still a human. Within two hours of meeting him she already considered him her friend **and** he was able to draw on power from a pair of supernatural worlds. At the thought of the supernatural Rika felt something stirring deep within her but she shook it off as just nerves.

It was 7:15 when Sakuyamon arrived at the street, the first thing that caught her eye was the number of people there. Yamaki hadn't been kidding when he said he contacted **everyone**. Even the media was there albeit at a "safe" distance. Gallantmon was talking to Kenta, Kazu, Jeri, Suzie, Antylamon, MarineAngemon and Guardromon; Jeri had Leomon's egg in sling, her cell phone in one hand and her D-Power in the other. MegaGargomon was talking to Justimon about something or other. Even the Imp Twins were there sitting in Behemoth wearing their helmets while Beelzemon gave instructions to the bike. Then Sakuyamon noticed Dianamon standing in front of a bank of TV's by herself with a confused look on her face.

"Is something wrong?" Sakuyamon asked as she landed

Dianamon shook her head "I know I should be out looking for Oto-chan but, I just **feel** like I'm supposed to be here. I don't know why but…"

"It's alright," Sakuyamon put a comforting hand on Dianamon's shoulder "after this we can **all** go look for him."

"Thank you…how long does it usually take for a Digimon to bioemerge?"

"Usually no more than about a minute why?"

"Well, we've been waiting for about twenty minutes now." Dianamon indicated a large digital clock on a nearby building. "Should we be concerned about the amount of time this is taking?"

Before Sakuyamon could answer there was loud rushing sound as the Digital Field appeared. Everyone waited for the fog to clear and was so focused on it that they failed to notice a figure quickly fly up out of the fog. When it did clear they saw what looked like a person, about five and a half feet tall. His right arm was armored by a pale blue brassard with white trim. While his left arm was bare but his hand seemed to glow red. His chest was covered in brown fur that matched his hair; his face was covered by a green horse head mask that sported a small red horn and on his back were four dragonfly like wings which were fold down and resting. Jeri pointed her D-Power at the "Digimon" and waited a few seconds till a screen popped up saying no data.

"There's no data on this one." Jeri said

Takato took a step forward "What do you want here? Are you friend or foe?"

The figure didn't respond. Sakuyamon heard the sound of static from the TVs behind her and looked at them. The all displayed one simple message. "To play, and yes." Sakuyamon read off the screens.

"Yes to friend or yes to foe?" Takato asked

The figure giggled and the message on the screens changed "Yes, now we play?" Sakuyamon read off

"I guess the only we'll find out if is a friend or not is by 'playing' with him." Beezlemon said

"Unfortunately, it seems he's right." MegaGargomon said "If we want to find out then we'll have to 'play' with him."

The message on the screens changed to a happy face followed by more text "You move first." Sakuyamon read

"That's fine with me."

Gallantmon rushed forward at blinding speed, but he wasn't fast enough. The four wings snapped out and the Digimon took off into the air shattering the asphalt beneath its feet. It giggled tucking its wings in as it spin to the right dodging a lunging Justimon. It flew up even higher and weaved around MegaGargomon's arms as he reached out to try and grab it. Guardomon flew towards it but missed as it suddenly closed its wings and dropped down. Sakuyamon waited until it was very close to her before trying her tactic.

"Crystal Sphere!"

A spherical barrier appeared around Sakuyamon and the strange Digimon. It flew slowly around inside the barrier for a little while. It brushed against Sakuyamon's arm like an affectionate cat. She had no idea why she had never seen this thing before now. Her thoughts were quickly interrupted when the Digimon sped at the barrier and flew straight through it leaving behind a small hole. Beelzemon was waiting for it on the outside but when he caught it the Digimon shattered into a million pieces. A hushed silence fell over everyone, even the media who had been obnoxiously loud until this point became silent watching as the pieces slowly fell to the ground.

"Henry."

"Not now Terriermon, can't you see what just happened?"

"Can't you? Check the sensors."

Before he could a series of giggle was heard behind everyone. They all turned to see the Digimon which they had thought destroyed sighting on the edge of a nearby building lazily swinging its legs back and forth like a bored child. When it noticed everyone had seen it, it waved merrily at them and took flight again. They continued to try and catch it for the next forty minutes but it always seemed one step ahead of them.

"It's almost like it has a bird's eye view of what's going on as it happens." Justimon said

The entire time they were chasing the Digimon Dianmon had remained unmoving. She watched as they failed time and again to try and grab a hold of Digimon. "A bird's eye view huh" she muttered still watching its movements. It was a possibility, but only just. She jumped to the top of the nearest building and began scanning the sky above and around the battlefield. She spotted what she was looking for and waited until it would be close enough for her to catch it when it fell.

"Goodnight Moon!"

Dianamon's leg guards glowed and the object in the sky dropped straight down. As it dropped the strange Digimon flew erratically for a few seconds before pulling up its mask and flying very high. Dianamon jumped into the air and caught the large Digimon that had fallen out of the sky. She carefully set down on the street while the one in the sky looked angrily at her. She just looked straight back at it.

"Onee-chan that's cheating!" It yelled down at her crossing its arms huffily.

Everyone looked at Dianamon who had started giggling before breaking down into fits of laughter. They all seemed so confused by the small Digimon's statement. She couldn't help but laugh at them all. What they had wasted forty minutes **trying** to do she had done in a matter of seconds. She didn't know why she thought of her idea but she had been right and that was the important thing.

"Oto-chan just get down here so I can hug the rest of you before you start explaining everything to us."

As Alex flew down at a low speed everyone was able to get a good look at him. Little wonder why they didn't recognize him right away, if he had left the mask up they would have. When he passed by everyone on his way to the ground they saw that his wings don't actually move but stay spread out and moved when he wanted to change direction or speed. He did a small mid air flip before resting his wings flat against his back and dropping the last foot or so to the ground. Dianamon gave him a quick hug before hitting him the top of his head.

"OW! What was that for?" he asked rubbing his head

"You idiot, we could've seriously hurt you back there!"

"No, do have any idea how slow I had to move so you wouldn't lose track of me?"

"Chirinmon, Ultimate, Holy Beast, Special Attacks are Wind Cutter Sword and Wave of Reformation, digivolves from Reppamon, it is said to be an ancient Digimon that was born at the creation of the Digital World, no type listed though." Jeri read off when she pointed her D-Power at the large sleeping Digimon.

"Human-Digimon hybrids have a type?" Alex asked as he walked up to the sleeping Digimon "Hey I need to be fully awake to explain anything so I need to wake up now." He said nudging Chirinmon with his foot. "I'm up, I'm up." He mumbled

Everyone had noticed that Alex and Chirinmon had the same voice but put it out of their heads for now. The more pressing issue was what had happened to make them have two bodies and we they kept referring to themselves as "I" instead of "we". They had so many questions to ask but Alex waved them all off. He motioned to the press indicating that this was not the place for the discussion. The decided to go to Henry's apartment instead of Rika's because it was closer and Rika didn't really want to go home anyway. On the way there Chirinmon Digivolved back into Kudamon and but Alex's appearance remained unchanged so he just carried Kudamon in his arms.

They all arrived and Gallantmon, Sakuyamon, MegaGargomon, and Justimon split back into The Tamers and their respective partners. They waited at the elevator for Henry, Terriermon, Beelzemon, Ai and Mako. With everyone there they took the elevator up to the penthouse apartment owned by Henry's family. The first thing Janyu did when Alex walked in the door was hook him up the scanner again. He went over its data for next few minutes before giving up on with a huff.

"Even if I could understand what this data is trying to tell me I don't think I could explain it. Basically it seems that you have a perfect link to each. So perfect in fact you think of yourselves more as one person than two."

Alex nodded and closed his eyes in concentration. His wings pointed back and spun together as they shrank and vanished. His fur became pale blue fabric as it became part of his shirt again. The blue on the brassard became transparent before it all shattered into a fine dust of ice while his left hand became normal again. Lastly the horn on the mask retracted and it faded away. Alex opened his eyes and checked to make sure he was fully human again before he started telling everyone what had happened.

Meanwhile in the world of the Digidestined Hikari was recounting the story of the Dark World as well. At first everyone had been too happy that she was back to question how she had gotten back. That is, until Takeru asked her how she was able to escape on her own. So then all the attention became centered on finding out just **how** she had managed it. She had to alter certain details to keep Alex and what he told her a secret from the others she could understand why. She had known nothing about him or the other side of the Gate but she felt that she could trust him and that his trust would be important.

Everyone seemed to believe her story, which was good in a way as it meant she had told a convincing lie. She hadn't lied very much; she just changed Alex into something that moved too fast for her to see and even that was partly true. The one person who seemed skeptical of her story was Takeru, he didn't like the power of darkness and in his mind **nothing** dark could perform such a selfless feat. The other person that was bothering her was Daisuke who was busily trying to prove how much he cared for her by more skeptical than Takeru. They were both bombarding her with questions about the "figure" that had rescued her from Dagomon and his minions. She was starting to get frustrated by the constant questioning and when she gets frustrated she sometimes forgets things.

"This 'figure' didn't plant anything on you did he? You know like something that would allow him come to the Real World?" Takeru asked

Hikari menatally snapped "Alex wouldn't do something like that!" she yelled at him, realizing what she just said she clapped her hands over her mouth.

"Alex?" her brother Taichi said "You were rescued by a guy? But I thought"

"I'm not answering anymore questions, right now I just want to be left alone with Gatomon."

Everyone was about to protest when Ken Ichijouji spoke up. "I understand Hikari, come on everyone let's give her some time alone." Everyone was about to say something but Ken held up a hand to silence them "She's been through a lot in the past few hours and having all of us interrogating her isn't what she needs." He said simply, his fool proof logic had gotten through to everyone because they nodded and muttered in agreement as the filed out of the room. "We'll be right outside if you need anything." Taichi said. She nodded her acknowledgement and said she would call if she did.

She breathed a sigh of relief as her door was closed leaving her alone in her room with Gatomon. She began a mental check of everyone's reactions to her story and slip up. Everyone had shown the most concern over her brief encounter with Dagomon and his minions. She began running through a list of people that she felt she could trust with the **real** truth. At the top of the list was Ken, she knew he would keep it secret if she asked, next was Sora, she was good at keeping secrets and was like a sister to Hikari, last was Takeru, she knew she had to trust him even though he might blab and use it as way to prove that she loved him and not Daisuke…which was true and she had told the two of them as much to begin with. What she really wanted right now was to be out of the house, she remembered how good it felt to be flying when she and Alex left the Dark World.

Hikari got up and grabbed her Digivice and D-Terminal, since Digimon were becoming more common the world over nobody would notice an extra one flying around. She gathered up the rest of the packaged snacks in the room and put them in a bag. She took off her slippers; since she was going to be flying she wouldn't need shoes anyway. She scribbled a note to everyone and set it on the desk. She never would have done something like this before she met Alex, but since she had something inside her had begun to stir. It wasn't anything new, on the contrary, it was something that she had as far back as she could remember but it was always content to stay buried. She opened the door and stepped out onto the balcony with Gatomon and slid the door shut behind her.

"So why are we doing this?" Gatomon asked

"I'm not really sure, I just… I just feel the need to fly right now. I don't really understand it but ever since we met Alex I've been feeling restless, especially when we were cooped up inside with everyone."

"I understand," Gatomon said knowingly "let's go now before everyone starts to wonder why it's so quiet."

"**DigiArmor Energize**!"

"**Gatomon ArmorDigivolve to…The Angel of Light Nefertimon**!"

Hikari quickly climbed onto Nefertimon's back and they took off into the morning sky. She reveled in the wonderful feeling of flying once again, she would probably be gone for a while and didn't know when they would find the note she had left. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes when she heard her name being called. She looked back and saw Ken and Stingmon flying towards her. She sighed it hadn't taken them as long as she had hoped it would but at least it was Ken they had sent after her. They flew up alongside her and the four of them flew in silence for a few minutes. Ken was the first to break the peaceful silence.

"So…what really happened when you went to the Dark World?"

"Wha? What do you mean what really happened?"

"Every time we've gone to the Dark World we had help from someone in order to get out."

"I…I can't tell you."

Ken nodded in understanding "It's alright, you don't have to tell. But…I'm here if you want to talk about it, and I promise you I won't tell anyone else."

"Alex." "What?" "The name of the person who saved me is Alex. Somehow he got trapped there as well. His Digimon partner is a Kudamon and they're…interesting, to say the least. Kudamon said that they before they got there the two of them had shared one body."

"What? How is something like that even possible?"

"I don't know but that's not even the strangest thing. Alex was able to make Kudamon digivolve by slashing a card through his Digivice and when Kudamon digivolved Alex changed to."

"Changed? Changed how?"

"He became more like Reppamon, Kudamon's Champion form. When Dagomon's minions showed up to try and take me away he frozen one of them and it died when it shattered. But he and Reppamon where swiped aside by Dagomon and I…I was willing to give up my hope, I was willing to let Dagomon take me away. Then Alex hit the ground with his fist and this pillar of magma shot up in front of me. He slashed a blue card and Reppamon digivolved again into Chirinmon and Alex changed again to. He made me get on Chirinmon while he fought Dagomon. His right arm became an ice sword and he managed to slash up Dagomon's arms before he **flew** yes **flew** up to where we were. Dagomon tried again but Alex shot a magma pillar at him from his left arm and Dagomon gave up."

Ken was silent for a little while as he processed this new information. "And he made you promise not tell us about him right?" Hikari nodded "I see, well you don't have to worry I won't tell anyone about it."

"Thanks Ken. But, there's still more to it."

"You don't have to tell me about it"

"I want to though. I feel that I can **truly truly** trust you with this information. He told me about that Gate we've been examining for the past for months. He said on the other side is not just the territory of another Sovereign but another Real World different from ours. He, that is Kudamon, used to be Kentaurosmon and was usually in charge of guarding the gate on his side and saw our silhouettes and heard us talking several times when Omnimon went through it. I…I don't think we should go through the gate on Monday."

"I have to agree with you. What do you think Stingmon?"

"Based on this new information I am of the same mind set. Hikari is there anyone else that you want to tell this to?"

"Just Sora, I want to tell Takeru but if I do I'm afraid that he might hint that he knows something to Daisuke and then I'll never hear the end of it."

"We'll go get her then." "Huh?"

"Everyone else is still back at your house. I volunteered to come get you because I had a feeling that you were hiding something. They only said to make sure you were okay. They never said I had to bring you back with me."

"That's okay; I'll go back with you and talk to Sora about it privately. If you send her to come get me it might cause even more trouble."

They flew back in silence Hikari enjoying the feel of wind and flying once again. Ken was lost in thought as he continued to go over the new information. He was surprised by the fact that Hikari had been able to keep most of the story she told everyone true. He had no idea that the Gate had not just another area of the Digital World but a completely different version of the Real World as well. But, that only made him uneasy about going near it again.

* * *

There is significance to the feeling that Rika and Hikari have both felt. Rika's will be explained in the next chapter accompanied by an encounter with a certain supernatrual being. When Hikari's is revealed more explaination of what a Gatekeeper is and their "hierarchy" of sorts will be explained and more information about Dianamon will be given. Also, Alex/Kudamon is the only person who's human Alt-form is so interesting and powerful, but remember he's channeling the power of 2 supernatrual worlds.

later ^^;


	8. Sis

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon but I wish I did

Reviews are welcome, like I said before I don't write to an audience but feedback is nice. Except the electrical kind that runs across your heart but that's a different subject.

* * *

By the time I finished answering everyone's questions Janyu had run about a dozen more tests on my, what we dubbed, Atl-form. He was unable to identify most of the stuff that made up my Alt-form but what he could tell us was that I was probably more durable than just about anything on the planet. Kudamon and I figured out that if we only wanted one body we just had to focus on being one again. While we had one body I could switch to my Alt-form or Kudamon with no trouble. It was now 9 o'clock on Friday morning and everyone seemed to understand everything that had happened.

"Alex, can I talk to you…alone." Rika said looking around.

"Sure, Henry do you mind if we use your room?"

"Go ahead; I'll make sure **no-one** eavesdrops on you two." He was looking pointedly at Terriermon when he spoke

"Thanks." I said as we walked into his room closing the door behind us

"So, what's up?" I asked her

She looked around nervously for a second. "Renamon I want you here to." Renamon materialized the corner "This morning when I was traveling to where you bioemerged…I…I thought about your supernatural powers. When I did I felt…**something** stirring deep inside me. I don't know what it is. I thought it was just nerves at the time but when you showed us what you could do now I felt it again. I…I don't really want to admit this but…but I'm scared."

She had a fearful tone in her voice and look on her face when she finished. I put my hands on her shoulders and pulled her into a comforting hug. If it weren't for the fact that she had come to me she would kill me for my actions. After a few moments I released her from my grip and gave her a reassuring smile. She looked a little better but still had a look of fear in her eyes.

"If I had tried that under different circumstances you'd kill me…if it's even possible to do that."

That got a chuckle out of her "Very true, but…what do you think it **means**?"

I thought about it for a second "Promise me you won't freak out alright?" she nodded and I took a steadying breath. "I think," I hesitated "I think that you have some sort of supernatural ability, is this the first time that you've ever felt it?" "No"

"Then that makes it all the more likely. There's a good chance that being around another person with active powers can catalyze the activation of someone's dormant powers. If that's the case then when your powers, whatever they are, become active for your use I'll help you learn to control of them. Okay?"

"Promise?" "…Promise, with Renamon and myself as witnesses."

"Thanks, and" "And if I tell anyone you'll beat me to a bloodied pulp right?"

"Right." "Now that's the brave and confident Rika Nonaka we all know and love."

Once she had composed herself we had Renamon check to make sure no one had been listening in. She confirmed that Henry had kept everyone away from his room and focused on something else. We went back out to the main room and decided it was time for us to leave and said our goodbyes to everyone. We left with Terriermon making cat calls at Rika; I silenced him with a well placed piece of ice to the mouth. I shift into my Alt-form while Rika and Renamon biomerged into Sakuyamon and we made our way back to her house.

"I forgot to ask you about your action this morning, why did you brush up against me like that?"

"Think about it, your Spirit Strike uses four Kudagitsune."

"Pipe foxes, I know but what does that have to do with you?"

"A lot of Digimon are based on things in folklore and mythology. Kudamon is no exception, he is based on the Kudagitsune. So naturally when I'm Kudamon or like this I'm more inclined towards his preference to you since you have Kudagitsune." "I see."

When we arrived at the house it was 9:15, I could've made it there faster but I didn't want to leave Sakuyamon by herself. Onee-chan had gone on ahead of us to make sure that Rumiko was not home when we got there. Fortunately, Rumiko had indeed gone to the photo shoot instead of waiting for Rika's return if she had then we would have to wait till she left. Seiko was happy to see us again and expressed great interest in my new abilities but I couldn't really show them off too much or I'd damage the yard. When Sakuyamon changed back into Rika and Renamon I noticed that her hair had grown longer, I put it aside as something to tell her later.

As the day wore on I noticed other subtle changes in Rika. Her hair continued to grow slightly longer and had probably gained a good three inches by 6 o'clock when Rumiko returned. She was not pleased in the least to see me but as Seiko had told me that Onee-chan and I **could** stay there was nothing she could do about it. I had already told Rika and Renamon about her rapidly growing hair and that she seemed to be slightly taller than she was before. Up until that moment I had failed to notice the way that Rika was walking until she walked away to get ready for dinner.

"Rika, stop walking right now." I said in a low voice

She turned around "What's wrong?" "Walk back over to me and watch your feet as you do." She nodded and looked down at her feet while walking back to me. I could feel myself getting pale at what I saw in front of me. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with her feet. No what it was, was the **way** she was walking. She was walking digitigrade, up on her toes, not plantigrade on the flats of her feet.

"Do you see **how** you are walking?" "On my toes, like I'm…supposed to?" she trailed off

"No," I said shaking my head "humans walk on the flats of their feet. Whatever is happening to you is accelerating I'm guessing that whatever your power is it's related to an animal of some sort. If your changes keep going at this rate then they'll probably be done by morning. Too bad it'll be Saturday, which means your mother will be here longer. We'll have to get you out of the house early and hopefully unnoticed, Renamon can you do that?"

"With ease." She responded coolly

"Good, now Rika just try and walk flat when we're going to and leaving the table okay?"

The fear had come back to her face but she nodded. I walked up to her and put my hands on her shoulders but didn't pull her into a hug this time. "Hey," I said softly "it's gonna be alright. You've got me, Onee-chan, Renamon, and if you talked to her about it even your Grandmother here to help you. You'll make it through this." I gave her a reassuring smile

She nodded and went off to change clothes this time making an active effort to walk like a normal human. Dinner was quiet that night I kept an eye on Rika throughout the meal to make sure her changes didn't rapidly accelerate or something. I took care of the dishes that night and set aside some food for tomorrow morning so we could grab it on the way out. This brought the unwanted attention of Rumiko onto me. No doubt she had noticed my constant watching of Rika during the meal.

"I'm not going to tell you anything so don't ask. If she wants to talk to **you** about it that's her choice not mine. So hvaing said that don't expect me to spill my guts to you just because you're about to hold me a knife point." I said turning around and sure enough she had steak knife in one hand. I reached forward and plucked it from her before freezing it solid and setting it on the counter. She looked shocked at what I had done which just brought a grin to my face. If there's one thing I like more than having fun, it's confusing the hell out of people. I walked away before she could react and went to meet Rika in her room I knocked before opening the door. She had already fallen asleep and Renamon and Onee-chan were standing quietly in the corner. When I came in Onee-chan left and closed the door behind her.

"I'm ready to talk about it now." Renamon said

I changed into Kudamon so she wouldn't have to speak as loudly "Like I said the other day I'm here for you."

She took a deep breath to prepare herself. "Just how much do you know about my past?"

"All I know is that you had a daughter but something happened to her."

She nodded "I had an egg at a young age, yes, my mate and I were both very prideful and refused to accept help. It would prove to be our undoing as both he and my daughter died at the hands of a SkullGreymon." "What was her name?" "…Digimon don't name their children." "But you did."

She hesitated "Ruki…her name was Ruki. I learned that pride is not everything, that may be part of why I was drawn to Rika, because she was very similar to how I was before then. All that mattered to her was her pride; she couldn't let anyone see her as weak, so without even realizing it I had made her my surrogate daughter. I used to wish I could kill the SkullGreymon that took my family away from me, if I did that then I would have the piece of mind to tell her all of this."

"Tomorrow is early enough then." This earned me a confused. "I only knew about your daughter because that SkullGreymon ya'll killed the day I appeared. The one that had been chasing me, that was the one that killed your family. It tried to use that as a way to get me to like it, all it did was drive me farther away even faster because he was so willing to pick on those much weaker than himself. Now, let's put this to rest I need to get some proper sleep tonight. Remember don't wake her up until her changes are finished, there's no telling **how** she might react to herself if she is mid change."

"I understand." "And one more thing, keep Rumiko out the room. For all of our sakes especially Rika's."

She nodded and I left the room closing the door behind me. I went into my room to find Onee-chan with her back leaning against the wall already asleep. I couldn't blame her she had been out literally all of last night looking for me, she had to be tired. I burrowed my way under the blankets and curled up. I fell asleep quickly and found myself in yet another dream. I was in Rika's bedroom, she was sleeping soundly under her blankets and I could see Renamon still kneeling at her right side but we weren't alone in the room. Kneeling at Rika's head was a beautiful woman with ten fox tails and a fox head instead of human one. Despite he attractiveness I knew who she was and it made me nervous.

"Well, good evening Lady Inari."

"Ah the young Gatekeeper I'm so glad you could make it." She said in a beautiful voice

"What is this about?" I asked bluntly

"Watch yourself; you know who you are speaking to and what I'm capable of." she said flatly

I put my arms out to my sides and focused my energy. My left arm took on the appearance of glowing volcanic rock. While the brassard formed on my right arm and my fingers became claws of ice. I knew exactly who and **what** she was and I was terrified but I didn't let it show. She saw my actions and gave a happy laugh.

"Such spirit! It is **sooo** good to see people who lack fear when they should have it most." She said happily

"Who said I'm not afraid? From where I'm standing you might be endangering the life of someone who has become my close friend. In truth I'm terrified I know you're a god and I know what you're capable of. But, I'm a Gatekeeper and I recently learned just how much **I** am capable of. You would win, but you'd be extremely weak for a long time if you fought me."

She laughed again even more amused and pleased by my reaction to her statement. "Everyone is always so polite to me, begging for this, praying for that and the whole time they show no emotion but fear or worry. Yet here you stand rude and obnoxious, but completely defiant pushing aside your fear and worries, willing to fight a fight you have admitted that you cannot win. All in order to protect your friend…"she stopped laughing and sighed before softly saying "she is very lucky to have someone like you. Tell me, why are you doing this? What makes her so important to you?"

"Like you said she's my friend. When I was growing up my Pawpaw had me remember one very important thing; to always, **always**, help and protect your friends and family no matter the cost to yourself."

Lady Inari nodded "Your Grandfather is very wise. Ah it seems the Gatekeeper of the Moon has arrived at last." I saw Onee-chan appear out of the corner of my eye. "Welcome, now that you are both here I suppose I owe you an explanation about your friend here. But…"

"One does not get something for nothing, I'm well aware of that. I know we wouldn't be here unless you wanted us to be so what do you want?"

"All in due time first, I must explain why **I** am here. This girl…she is part kitsune. I do not know if you had worked that part out but I will tell you it is from far back on her father's side. The powers have lain dormant in her bloodline for generations. Now it seems they are finally about to emerge once again. Her powers and nature have been showing up all her life but they are now about to truly awaken much like yours did four years ago descendant of the **Cù Sìth**."

"I may be descended from one but that doesn't mean I have much access **or **control over **those** powers."

"Not yet you don't, but all things grow with time. Her changes will be finished when you wake in the morning and her appearance will be similar to this one here." She indicated Renamon "Though she won't be as tall and like you she will be able to change her body back. Now in exchange for this information I want something only Gatekeepers can give."

"And what is that?"

"…I want you to protect her. She will be a Gatekeeper herself after all."

"The Gatekeeper to the world of the kitsune right?" "Correct."

I relaxed and let my arms turn back to normal. "Why didn't you so say so in the first place. Since she is a Gatekeeper that makes her part of the family, and I am bound by laws more ancient than I can comprehend to protect her. Which leaves one question is she my elder or my younger?"

"That is where things become complicated. I don't know. I think that the two of you share more of a twin relation were the elder and younger change and is based on the situation. The true nature of it though is up to the two of you to decide."

"I accept your bargain for the information and I thank you for it."

"Thank you," She said standing up and bowing to me

"There's no need for you to bow to me or thank me. I'm simply doing what I was taught to protecting my friends and family."

"Very well, if you will not accept my thanks then please at least accept my blessing."

"I will, and thank you for answering my questions."

Everything faded away and I was left back in a dreamless sleep. I woke quickly at 7:30 and went to the kitchen to retrieve the food I had set out the previous evening while Onee-chan went to Rika's room. When I entered the kitchen the first thing I noticed was Rumiko sitting at the table with a smug look on her face as she stared at the very large amount of food on the counter. I ignored her and carefully packed it all into a pair of large bags I had brought with me while eating a little bit of it myself. Rumiko continued to sit there looking smug but as I continued to ignore her she began to get flustered.

"Since you're taking all that food it's safe for me to assume you're leaving?"

"Nope, most of it's not for me, it's for my sister." "You mean your Onee-chan?"

"No, my new sister. When she wakes up she'll be extremely hungry…once she gets over her initial shock." I said calmly "I'm afraid I don't understand." she responded

"That's alright, **you** don't need to. I'm pretty sure if you did, then I'd have a headache." I hefted the full bags onto my back and started to leave.

"I'm not!" Rumiko began but was cut off by scream from Rika's room. "RIKA!" Rumiko yelled quickly getting up.

But I was already halfway to her room. I was swearing in English under my breath the whole way there. I knew it wouldn't take her long to wake up but I had hoped for at least another five minutes. Onee-chan was waiting outside the door to Rika's room and I handed her one of the bags of food before going inside. Infront of me I saw two Renamon; one was sitting up in Rika's bed franticly examining itself. It had to be Rika for three reasons; one it was in her bed, two its fur was the same coloration as her hair, and three she didn't have Renamon's armguards. I shifted to my Alt-form and realized just how tall it made me as I stood there looking down at my new sister. She began to breakdown crying in confusion, out in the hallway I could hear Rumiko yelling at Onee-chan to move…apparently she forgot that she could go around.

"It's alright Sis," I said softly taking her into a comforting hug "you're still Rika. Shhhh, its okay, just let it all out." I continued to comfort her for a bit.

"I'm afraid that she is now to large for me to carry." Renamon said sheepishly

"That's alright," I said gently cradling Sis as I picked her up "I'll carry her, you help Onee-chan with the food and bring a change of clothes for her."

Renamon nodded and went to the door as she opened it Rumiko tried to force her way in, thankfully the combined efforts of Renamon and Onee-chan were able to keep her out. I looked over my shoulder and saw her face pale at the same time that I felt Sis's tail slip off of my arm. I carefully adjusted my arm to get Sis's tail back over it without revealing even more of the still sobbing girl to Rumiko. I walked to the back door of Sis's room and slid it open with my foot. As we stepped out into the morning air I felt Sis shudder, I couldn't blame her but at least I could fly fast enough that we would go unnoticed. I took off slowly so I wouldn't damage the house and when I was a good ten feet above the house I sped up so we would appear as nothing more than a blur as we headed towards a secluded area of the park. We landed and I set Sis down, she had calmed down enough to at least shakily stand on her own.

"Why?" she asked softly

"You're a Gatekeeper now. Last night while everyone was sleeping Lady Inari came to me in a dream and told me that you are part kitsune. She said it's from way back on your father's side, which makes you the Gatekeeper of the kitsune's world. You're gonna be fine Sis, just relax and wait for Renamon and Onee-chan to get here."

"I…I know about Lady Inari. I didn't see anything in my sleep last night but I heard all of it. What did you mean by 'part of the family', is that why you keep calling me Sis?"

I nodded "Traditionally, Gatekeepers are drawn to one another due to their powers and would form a family of brothers and sisters. Onee-chan is Onee-chan because she is the eldest of, we, the current Gatekeepers. Kudamon was the second Gatekeeper and I the third. However, like me, your powers have been manifesting in small ways all your life without you or anyone else realizing it. As a result neither one of us is the clear elder or younger. We're more like twins and the position will change depending on the situation."

"Brother…"  
"It's alright you'll get used to it."  
"You realize you'll have to explain all this again to Rena…mon." she trailed off

"Onee-chan is doing that right now. I'm guessing you want to know why **you** look like Renamon?" She nodded "That's a very easy one, because you and Renamon biomerge so you're partly made up her data. So rather than craft you a whole new body for an Alt-form the Gate simply used Renamon's data as a template. You have the same abilities as Renamon and probably a few others as a result of the Gate."

"Does that mean I'll be able to digivolve?"

"I don't think so, you were not permanently fused with Renamon as she is now like I am with Kudamon."

"So am I able to change back to my normal body?"  
"Yes but let's wait until after we've eaten before I teach you that." Sis's stomach suddenly let out a very loud growl. "How did you know?"

"I've been through the same thing remember? After the initial shock wears off you're extremely hungry because of all the energy your body has used up in the awakening process."

"Brother there's something else I want to ask you about."  
"Shoot"

"When you disappeared two nights ago after the argument…I…cried myself to sleep...and Renamon…" she hesitated "Renamon comforted me and sang a lullaby to me. I've heard it many times before when I was having nightmares but… I always thought that mother…that Rumiko…was the one comforting me. Why would Renamon do something like that for me?"

"…"  
"Brother?"

I sighed "I suppose I'd better tell you, at least the short version of it. Renamon had a mate and a daughter before she met you. They were both very prideful and that cost them dearly. Her mate and daughter died at the hands of the same SkullGreymon that ya'll destroyed the other day. She wanted to become stronger in part to forget about the pain but also so she could one day avenge her family. When she met you those thoughts vanished."

"Why?"

"Because you reminded her of herself before her lose; strong, prideful, believing you could do no wrong and never suffer defeat. In you she saw a second chance at motherhood, and though she did not intend it, you became her surrogate daughter, every bit as real and important as her first daughter and yet so much more so."

She was quiet for a moment "I always did think of her as more of a mother than I did Rumiko…Brother, what do you think?"

"If being a Gatekeeper has taught me one thing it's this: go with your intuition. That's why you've stopped calling your biological mother, mother and started calling her Rumiko, right?" She nodded "Well, what does your intuition tell you to call Renamon now?"

"…Mother."

"What do you want her to call you?"  
She thought for a moment "Rikamon…but everyone else should call me Rika."

"That's to be expected since your changes were modeled after Renamon's data you only recognize yourself as a Digimon when it comes to her. What about your Grandmother what does your intuition tell you to call her?"

Sis smiled happily "She's still Grandma," she said in happy voice as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Brother, last night Lady Inari called you a Cù Sìth. What is that?"

"In Scottish mythology the Cù Sìth are enormous black dogs, about the size of a large cow, that were considered a harbinger of death and would lead dead souls to the afterlife. The name literally means fairy dog because some legends say that they would whisk women away from villages to care for fairy children. The former was truer than the latter though."

"So, you can turn into a giant dog, a Kudamon, a human, and your current form?"

"I prefer not to take on my Cù Sìth form. I don't mind being huge, it's just annoying sometimes having to deal with the spirits of the dead who don't want to move on but won't leave you alone because they like having someone to talk to."

"Since Dianamon is a gatekeeper, does she have an animal she can turn into as well?"

"She can turn into a Hawk. But like me she prefers not to. My guess is that this is your only Alt-form, with some practice you can probably use all the same powers that the kitsune of legends can in addition to your Digimon powers."

Onee-chan and Renamon arrived a moment later with the food. When Sis saw Renamon a happy smile appeared on her face and she went to hug her. Renamon dropped the bag she was carrying in surprise when Sis basically tackled her with her hug. Poor Renamon had such a confused look on her face that I couldn't help but laugh. Then Sis spoke to her.

"Thank you for bringing me food...Mother." Renamon's expression softened as she stroked Sis's back but she looked at me still confused.

"Remember what I said to you the first night we met? I said 'It's not something you should be afraid of, embrace it. That is what you should do.'"

She nodded and embraced her new daughter "Are you hungry Rika?"  
"Mother, it's Rikamon to you and yes I'm famished."

They broke their hug and we all started unpacking the food. Most of it was set aside for Rika as she needed it. We ate quietly enjoying the sounds around us and the distant sound of people in the park. The entire meal Sis seemed happy; her personality hadn't changed just her attitude. I knew that this was an effect of being a Gatekeeper; it gave you a happy attitude to better allow you to deal with the raw amount of power your body channeled even when you weren't actively drawing on it. We finished eating in about twenty minutes.

"Rumiko's going to pissed about all of this." Sis chuckled  
"Rikamon, language."  
"Sorry Mother."

"Not as mad as she'll be when she finds out you can fly." I said grinning "Alex, no."

"Onee-chan you only call me by name if it's serious so, why not?"

"If anyone is going to teach her flight it will be me, though I do not use it as often as you I am still more skilled."

"Oh, alright but I'm still a faster flyer." I huffed "That you are." She said ruffling my hair.

"Sis, I'm going to teach you how to change back, now that we've all eaten." She nodded "It's very simple just focus on your human form and you'll change back."

We watched as Sis changed back into a human, unlike when I change back from being a Digimon her change did not look like a digivolution. Her fur seemed to flow around her body exposing her clothing and skin and her feet altered into plantigrade human form. When she was done Rika Nonaka was standing in front of us with her hair now reaching about midway down her back and she looked to be about three inches taller than yesterday and her figure seemed to have filled out a bit more. I created a tall cubicle of ice for her change inside of and politely faced away from it when she went inside. She came out wearing a pair of blue jeans and an orange t-shirt with a yellow exclamation mark on it. I had her practice changing back and forth for the next ten minutes while Onee-chan stuffed one of the bags and Sis's clothes inside the other bag.

It was now about 8:10 and rather than head back we decided to go for a walk around the city, with Sis in her Alt-form and Kudamon and I separate. I insisted she do this because she had to get used to her Alt-form. We headed back to the main area of the park talking the entire way Sis and Renamon had lots of questions but unfortunately I only knew the answer to a handful of them right now. When we made it into the main area it was surprisingly crowded for such an early time of day, even the press was swarming the place. We soon found out why when through the crowd of people we saw Ryo Akiyama. I saw Sis walk towards him and start working her way through the crowd. I had a some inkling of what she was going to do as I was about to suggest a similar prank to mess with Ryo's image.

"Hello, there handsome." Sis said seductively as she walked up to Ryo

"Uh h-hey there." He stuttered

Before he could say anything else she planted a gentle kiss on his cheek. He stiffened at the sudden contact and his face turned bright red, all of this in front of the press and fans. Sis suddenly shifted out leaving him standing there completely red, embarrassed, and alone. I couldn't help it, I fell over as I burst out laughing at his reaction Sis shifted in next to me laughing equally as hard. She had probably always been like this, probably, she had just worked very hard to keep it hidden from everyone.

"And who says I don't have a sense of humor." She managed to say through her laughter

"I was about to suggest something like that when you walked off Sis." I laughed out

"I must admit it was rather amusing." Onee-chan chuckled

"Rikamon, I hope you don't make a habit of doing that." Renamon whispered

That's when the press noticed us; they must be deaf or something to have not noticed our raucous laughter. They swarmed us and began snapping photos and asking questions while Sis and I continued to laugh our heads off. Of course they didn't get any answers from us because Sis and I were too busy laughing and Onee-chan and Renamon didn't want to answer any questions. Ryo walked over to us and immediately recognized Onee-chan from when everyone was chasing me yesterday morning. This means by extention he knew that the Renamon we were with was indeed Sis's partner and did not belong to someone else. Sis and I managed to get our laughter under control and I got up still chuckling a little.

"So Renamon, where's Rika?" he asked. Sis and I broke down laughing again and it was only because we leaned against each other that we stayed up right "What's so funny? I can understand that pulling a stunt like that in front the press to make it look like I was embarrassed is funny. But, in all seriousness where is Rika?"

I shot Renamon a very quick warning glance "She's still at home sleeping." She said quickly

"Oh," he said disappointedly "that's too bad, I've gotta go back to the Digiworld and meet some people so I was hoping to say goodbye to her before I left. You'll tell her for me won't you?" Sis and I began laughing even harder but he was making a point of trying to ignore us

"Yea, yea, we'll tell her for you justice boy." Sis managed to say through her laughter

He nodded his thanks and said goodbye to us before he went over and entered the gate to the Digital World. Sis and I just continued to laugh for the next few minutes as the press left realizing we wouldn't be saying anything to them. When we got our hysterics under control for a final time most of the crowd had disperced and what remained were people trying to make Onee-chan and Sis their partner. Of course a quick death-threat from Onee-chan sent them skittering away like a bunch of mice. No matter how many times I see that it will always make me laugh. With the people gone we began making our way back to Sis's house at a leisurely pace. On the way back we saw Beelzemon taking the Twins for a ride on Behemoth and we passed Takato and Jeri walking hand in hand with Guilmon, who had a Tsunomon on his head, following behind them.

"Morning Gogglehead." Sis said casually as we walked past them  
"Morning Rika." he said absentmindedly

Takato then did a double take looking for Sis not realizing she was right there. He shook his head and they continued walking. If he had paid more attention he would have noticed the grin Sis had on her face. By the time we made it back to Sis's house it was almost 8:50. Of course the press was waiting for us outside the front gate hoping to get their first shot of Sis or Rumiko for the day. They were adamant about not leaving, till I switched my right arm into its Alt-form and crushed one of their cameras. Once they were gone we opened the gate and made our way inside the estate. As soon as we walked in the house I realized we should've had Sis change back **before **we came in, because Rumiko was standing right there in the foyer waiting for us. She took one look at Sis and put her hands on her shoulders.

"Rika, **please **tell me this **is **a suit and you're going through some sort of phase."

Sis ignored her and looked at Renamon "Mother, I'm hungry again, is it alright if I go get some more food from the kitchen?"  
"Of course Rikamon."  
"Thank you mother."

Sis shook Rumiko's hands off her shoulders and gave Renamon a quick hug. I looked at Rumiko; this simple exchange brought a horrified expression to her face. She turned and watched as Sis left the room heading for the kitchen to eat tail swaying gently back and forth. When she turned back her face was one of rage and confusion, she plopped down on the step in the foyer as I took off my shoes. I made to follow Sis when Rumiko spoke up.

"What happened to **my** daughter? Why is she wearing that…that **suit**?" she asked in a hollow voice

"I can assure you it's no suit, and she is no longer **your **daughter. I doubt she has actually even thought of herself as your daughter for several years now." I said calmly

She rounded on me "And just what is that supposed to mean? I-I did everything a good mother should. I took her to photo shoots with me. I bought her nice clothes. She was fine until **you** showed up!" she snapped rounding on Renamon "You-you **thing**! You drove her away from me! You filed her head with empty lies and promises!"

"No," Onee-chan spoke up "I have not been in this home long. But, in the short time I have spent with your family I can tell that **YOU** drove her away yourself, all on your own. It probably started before Renamon even arrived. You were trying to make her into the daughter that **you** wanted not the daughter **she** wanted to be."

"I am sorry that things worked out this way but it's not Renamon's fault. What happened to Sis is nobody's fault, but the fact that she no longer considers you her mother is a result of your actions and your actions alone. Now I'm going to get something to eat as well so Sis doesn't take **all** of the food."

With that I left the foyer and went into the kitchen where Sis was talking animatedly to Ms. Seiko. I quickly grabbed some food and sat down at the table to eat. Ms. Seiko didn't seem phased in the least by the changes that had come over Sis. She was even fine with the fact that Sis didn't even consider Rumiko related to her in anyway. That's when it hit me, why didn't I realize this sooner.

"Ms. Seiko, you have The Sight don't you?"

"I have been told that before, but honestly I don't really know what it is. Can you explain it to me?"

"Sure, it's called The Sight because ancient **Seers **were the ones that had it. But it really has nothing to do with sight or any of the other five senses for that matter. It's more of a sixth sense that lets you feel changes and presences around you. That's why you knew about Renamon before she had been introduced to you right?" she nodded "Then I have a question for you, when did you first feel Sis's changes?"

"Oh probably about four years ago now, it was very subtle I almost didn't notice it. She and Rumiko came back from a photo shoot and Rika had a different…air, about her I suppose. But that's enough talk for now, I need to see to my daughter who is probably not taking this very well."

When she left the room Sis spoke to me "I just remember we need to get you registered for school. I'll take care of doing that but you'll need to go with me so we know which classes to put you in. We'll leave around noon to go take care of that."

"And in the mean time you want to learn more about your powers don't you."  
"That's right."

"Well, it's more important for you to master your Digimon abilities first. You'll have to have your mom teach you about those because I don't know anything about yours."

We sat there and planned out the rest of the day. At nine Renamon would teach Sis how to use her abilities out in the garden. At ten we would take a break and relax for about an hour. At eleven, Onee-chan would teach her how to fly. Then at noon we would go take care of registering me for school and classes. What could possibly go wrong right? Later I would wish that I didn't ask that question.

* * *

Questions? Comments? feel free to drop'em by and I'll try to answer promptly

Later ^^;


	9. 7 to 11

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon...but I would like to

* * *

Three hours had passed and Onee-chan, Sis, Renamon and I were on our way to the school to get me registered for classes. Of course Sis had to be in her human form which mildly bothered her as she just starting to get used to being a Renamon. She had learned how to use her Diamond Storm and Power Paw attacks well and while not extremely powerful yet with more practice they would be. Flight lessons were didn't go quite as well, I suppose being able to fly without **having** wings is a little unnerving at first…not that I would know. However when the planned hour was up she had at least managed to get the basics down and she could always practice later. Despite the fact that we were walking the press kept a large distance from us, guess that's to be expected since I crushed one of their cameras like an aluminum can earlier. When we got to the school we ran into Henry and Terriermon, who were also being followed by members of the press who scatter when they saw me.

"Should I even ask?" Henry said to me

"Brother crushed one of their cameras earlier when they wouldn't leave us alone." Sis said

"Rika, aren't you an only child?"

"Sort of," she hesitated "**Later** Sis, we can tell him **later**." I said putting a hand on her shoulder

Henry just shook it off and followed us inside the school with the press trailing a good thirty feet behind him. The building was huge but I guess that's to be expected of Japanese high school or any high school for that matter. We went into the main office and began the process of registering me for the school and classes, despite it being almost time for school year to begin a substantial sum of money in the right place can work wonders. I was registered at the school and put in all the right classes in a matter of minutes; I would be sharing a homeroom with the other Tamers. I would have Sis in most of my classes and the few that I didn't I had one of the other Tamers, I was glad to see that in addition to homeroom we also shared our last as well, hooray for Personal Fitness. As we made our way back outside everyone, with exception of Henry, began feeling the prickling on the backs of our necks indicating the formation of a digital field. The press immediately backed up about ten feet farther from where we were and Henry's cell phone rang.

"Yeah we know that a Digimon is bioemerging because the field is right in front of us…Rika? She's right here with me…I'll ask her. Hey Rika did you leave your cell at home." Sis nodded she was to focused on the field to do anything else "She said yes…Mega? Are you sure? Alright, alright, we'll be careful."

When the outline of the Mega in question finally appeared I groaned. "Crusadermon, what are you doing here? Are your feelings for me so strong that ya'll didn't get the message when I pummeled Magnamon. I have **no** intention of returning."

She gave a shill girly laugh "It's only because we sent Magnmon that you said no, Omnimon thought I might have better luck. I really hope you don't make me have to harm that pretty face of yours to get you to cooperate. But if I have to I will, I just hope that whatever has happened to you can be reversed."

She stepped through what little was left of the fog and grimaced. "If it's not then I'll be very upset."

"Then you're **really** gonna hate this." I put my arms out to my sides and shifted to my Alt-form, and since the press was there I decided to be a bit…showy. I let my right arm become encased in ice before bent my elbow and brought it forward shattering the ice to reveal the brassard beneath. My left arm mimicked my right except it became the color of stone and when I brought it forward glowing cracks appeared all over it. My wings shot out in much the same manner as when Greymon becomes MetalGreymon. As my mask formed my feet became black and hoof like while my shirt became brown fur. I quickly pulled my mask down, as long as I had one body it functioned a means of protection. This got a frustrated snarl out of her. I felt bad about what I was about to do.

"Look what you've done to yourself, while as a human you weren't really cute it was still better than the way you look now! But, since you've taken on a more battle ready appearance I suppose I have no choice but to fight you." she went into a fighting stance

"Everyone stay back, Sis, no matter how bad it looks **do** **not** interfere. Onee-chan if I get beaten I'm counting on you to finish this." They all nodded in response.

"Sis? So you're a human with a family. I may be a Royal Knight but I'm not above hitting low to get what I want."

She lunged forward grasping for Sis but all she got was air as Sis phased out. Crusadermon's brief moment of shock was all the opening I needed. I took flight, ripping apart the ground I had been standing on as I did so, I flew past her and grabbed a hold of one of her sash blades. I flew straight up breaking the sound barrier. After a good 500 feet of vertical flight I spun and threw her into the air, before she started falling she managed to recover. She couldn't fly but since she was dropping straight at me so it didn't really matter. She closed the gap quickly and brought her shield forward to hit me. Acting on instinct I put my hands together and felt pressure beginning to build up.

"Have you forgotten? My armor is made from Chrome Digizoid. You won't be able to scratch it!"

I brought my hands forward and opened them "Shatter Blast." I said instinctively. It wasn't until the reporters let me see the news footage **afterwards** that I would realize what happened. From my perspective all I saw was Crusadermon's shield and part of her armor well…shatter, from whatever it was I had done. I knew I wasn't strong enough to delete her but it seems my hit had been strong enough to make her digivolve back into her Kotemon form which had rink instead of blue on its armor. What the cameras showed was looked like a very violent but directed shockwave hitting her. I managed to catch her about a hundred feet off the ground luckily she was unconscious, well for me anyway. When I landed I handed her to Onee-chan and realized that my hands **really** hurt, for something as strong as that a little pain was a great price. The price left quickly since they had gathered some great footage for later, I changed out of my Alt-form and was immediately embraced in tight hug from Sis.

"I'm so glad you're alright Brother. What you did was pretty cool." She said releasing me from the bone crushing hug

"Is this the same Rika that we've been getting pushed around by for the past five years? Terriermon asked

"Terriermon!"  
"Momentai, Henry considering how she's acting I think it's a legitimate question."

"Since the press is gone I guess we can fill him in on the details, but first **both** of you have to swear you won't tell anyone about it." The both muttered in agreement "Sis is now a Gatekeeper like me, and Gatekeepers form a family of brothers and sisters. The first of the Gatekeepers to discover their powers is the eldest sibling. Sis and I discovered our powers at about the same time so we're more like twins."

"Does she have an Alt-form to?"

"Yes I do but I'll show that to you when I show and tell everyone else on Monday."

"In the meantime what do we do with her?" Sis indicated Kotemon

"We keep her. She'll talk given enough time and with the right…incentive." I said as I felt Kudamon appear around my neck

We parted ways at the school gate Henry going home and us heading off for a snack. We were sitting in an expensive restaurant when Kotemon began to wake up. We didn't really pay any attention to her, except to make sure that she didn't try to run away. Not that that was hard with Kudamon and I separate, she was practically smothering me but I'd have to deal with it. I managed to convince her to eat **something** because I knew she would be hungry. Sure enough she ended up eating almost as much food as me, and I was feeding to mouths. When we finally left it was 1:30 in the afternoon, I quickly ducked into an alley and Kudamon and I went back to having one body and I changed into Kudamon and Kotemon proceeded to stick to me like glue.

"You realize you're trembling right?" I said and well because she was

"Y-yeah, it's just…" she hesitated "this place is so strange, I'm a little scared by all of it."

Behind me I heard Sis talking to Onee-chan "What's with Brother, are they together or something?"

"No, but Kotemon has always been in love with Oto-chan. He used to act like a little boy afraid of those…what are they called again?"  
"I think the word you're looking for is 'cooties'" I said smirking

"Well since you're actually willing to let me get close to you now, I guess what you did isn't all bad."

Kotemon said resting her head on my shoulder. I could feel myself blushing under my fur, thank God for the fur. We made idle conversation as we walked around the city occasionally running into other Digimon Tamers. We showed Kotemon important sites like Hypnos and Shinjuku Park, better known as The Park. It took a few hours before I got around to asking it but I finally did.

"Hey Kotemon?"  
"Hmm?"  
"Do you…do you want to stay here, in the Real World…with us?"

"You don't have to answer right away. Take your time, but if you want to…" I trailed off; it was obvious to anyone that I was really asking if she wanted to stay with me.  
"Yes, I think that would be for the best. I did't plan on ever really return to The Guardians, not as I am, and if I ever did become Crusadermon again I wouldon't." She said holding my arm tighter "Things have changed so much since you left. Being there doesn't feel right anymore."

I wrapped my tail around her "It's alright; if you're going to be staying here then we need to get you registered in the Hypnos databanks so you don't have any trouble with Tamers trying to fight you."

We made our way back to the Hypnos building through the park, I heard people whispering as we went past them. I just tuned them out, they were unimportant right now. I knew that what Kotemon had for me was more than a crush; it was true love and knew that I felt the same way about her. Whether these were feelings were originally mine or Kudamon's didn't matter, because I loved her and I knew she loved me. We went inside the Hypnos building and Sis led us straight to the elevator which we took to one of the upper floors. We the office of one Mitsuo Yamaki, the director of operations for Hypnos, The Tamers were on good terms with Yamaki and he was always willing to do them a favor or two if they asked. When we entered his office he was typing away at his computer, probably finishing a report or something, but he looked up when he heard the door close.

"Ah Ms. Nonaka good it's good to see you again." He said getting up and walking over to shake Sis's hand. "I see you've brought some friends with you. Let me guess they need registering and you want me to expedite the process?"

"That's right. This is Dianamon, Kotemon, and Alex."

"Alex huh, since when do Digimon have names?"

"It's a long story, I'll tell you about it after we get everything squared away."

"Fair enough, and Rika what do you mean by registering yourself." "You'll find out soon enough."

He shrugged it off for now and pressed the intercom button on his phone "Riley can you send Calumon in here with a portable Registration unit?"

There was a pause "He's on his way in, he's also bringing you the latest statistics and he insisted on bringing you a snack." "A snack really?" he said dejectedly

Then the door flew open and Calumon flew inside carrying a large tray "Yes a snack. You play so much that you forget to eat sometimes, and if you don't eat you'll be too tired to play." He said simply

"You know I'm still surprised we're able to keep you here at all."

"There's always lots of fun stuff to do here!"  
"Besides didn't you say it was better for everyone's morale if someone who's always fun and happy is around?" Sis asked

"That's beside the point, I would've thought by now that he'd have left to go find another place to play."

"And miss out on all the fun and free snacks? No way!" Calumon said munching on a sweet roll.

I examined the registration unit closely, it looked a lot like the scanner those J.A.V.A members had used on me. "Let me explain how this device works." Yamaki said picking it up "Fundamentally all Digimon of the same species share the same source code. That's why they can be identified by a D-Power or similar simple scan device. What this does is a deeper scan which identifies pieces of coding unique to the individual and then records them in the database. This allows us to keep track of their whereabouts and when they are coming or going from the Digital World. The process is very simple you just stand still for about a minute while I scan you and then you're done. So who's going first?"

I volunteered and after convincing Kotemon to let go for a little Yamaki began scanning me. I proceeded to fill him in on most of the stuff that had happened so far as he scanned me, Onee-chan, and Kotemon. When I got to the part about Sis becoming a Gatekeeper she took over. When she finished getting him up to date I noticed that he looked very skeptical. So to prove it to the nonbeliever Sis and I both change right in front of him. Sis and I broke down laughing at the look on his face, it was just too much, I **so** wish we had a camera to capture it. He then proceeded to scan Sis so the systems wouldn't get confused, I heard him muttering something about there always being a new change or something.

"So do you want me to make this information public for you?"

"No, we're just going to tell the other Tamers on Monday." I said quickly

"I see." He said slowly "Well if there's anything else you need help with later then just let me know."

"We will."

With that taken care of we left Hypnos and went back to Sis's house. When we got there Kotemon was introduced to Seiko who seemed happy to have the large mansion filling with people. I could tell that she instantly knew how Kotemon and I felt about each other but fortunately she didn't say anything about it. I could also tell that Kotemon was confused as to why Seiko was being so nice to her after all she hadn't done anything to deserve her kindness. It took me a few minutes but I finally managed to think up a good way of explaining it to her.

"Ms Seiko is Sis's grandmother and people who make Sis happy are always welcomed by her. This is where I've been staying since I got to Shinjuku and where you'll be staying now as well." "Okay."

I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost four. We sat around for the next two hours and talked about everything that had happened over the course of the day because none of us really felt like going back out to do anything. After dinner we all relaxed in the family room, Sis was lounging around in her Alt-form enjoying its enhanced senses by listening to music from her CD player. Renamon and Onee-chan were talking about something or other in hushed voices. It was around 7 o'clock and I was about to go to bed when Kotemon tugged on my sleeve.

"Umm…there's…there's something I need to talk to you about." I gave her an odd look "It's not about that!"She quickly said "It's about The Guardians. When Omnimon sent me out he said…he said to bring you back or keep you occupied for as long as possible. I don't really know what he meant but when I was leaving I also heard him say something about people crossing The Gate and Daemon. Even if he Omnimon hadn't sent me out to get you whatever I did would have been my last mission before I left on my own to try and be with you."

I nodded remembering my conversation with Hikari in the Dark World. "Don't worry about it. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it when the time comes. Now why don't you get some sleep?"  
"Weren't you going"  
"I was but not now. I need some time alone to think about this new…development."

She simply shook her head and muttered something about men and being macho. I rolled my eyes as headed for the front door, I made sure to tell Onee-chan that I was going out for some…"air". She told me to be careful and not stay out to late or she'd skin me alive, a threat I knew full well she could carry out. Once I was outside I was hit with a sudden urge, an urge not to be in my human or Atl-form. I tried being Kudamon but that didn't seem to work either. I thought for a moment before reaching deep down for a power I literally hadn't used in years and let it wash over me. I knew what I had become and quickly left the house, I didn't want to draw any spirits there whether human or otherwise.

I had heard of Daemon before from Onee-chan, all she had told me about him was that he had great and terrible power. I later on I learned that he had strangely vanished from the Digital World but thought nothing of it. I could not for the life of me figure out what sort of connection he had to The Gate. The news about people crossing through The Gate was somewhat more troubling to me. If the Digidestined were indeed travelling through The Gate then there had to be a reason. After walking around for over an hour I realized nobody was panicking, then I remembered that in this form people can only see me if I let them. I was glad that no one could see me; a giant black dog that looks worried would probably freak people out, especially one like me that uses crosswalks.

"Penny for your thoughts." I looked around for the source of the voice and saw a man dressed in a blue martial arts outfit amongst the crowd of people looking at me from the corner of his eye. I did a the canine equivalent of a "who me" expression and received a short but affirmative nod.

"You're either gifted, a spirit, or unlucky if you can see me like this."

He shrugged "Who knows, but you are very far from home aren't you."

"In a manner of speaking."  
"To me it's plain to see that you consider where ever your friends are to be home. Why don't we take a walk?"

I shrugged as best as I could and indicated for him to lead on. To me it was strange almost surreal to be following around a complete stranger whilst appearing as a Cù Sìth. We slowly made our way to a dojo and went inside where he was greeted by his wife, how surprised me by saying hello to me as well. We went into the main room and I lay down while he sat down and his wife brought us some tea. He sipped his whilst I lay there thinking, I could always get up and leave…but maybe…maybe this man could help me.

"I don't know what to do." I paused for a few moments "Very soon I may have to fight against some very good people. If I don't fight I'll be dragged back to where I was before and I don't want to go back. I've made that clear already, I told them when I left and I told them again after they sent someone to get me. Then they sent someone I love and who loves me to try and bring me back. I had to fight her, but she forgave me. She said she didn't want to go back and that she had been planning on leaving. The she told me that…people who probably shouldn't be coming here are and that a powerful evil is stirring again. Even with all that I still don't know what those good people want me for." I sighed "I doubt any of this makes sense to you but, I'm grateful that you listened." I started to get up but he motioned for me to stay as he finished his tea.

"It seems that all of this stems from the fact that you really don't know if these 'good' people are actually good and why they need you around. You should ask them why they need you and why you have to return to whatever this 'place' is that you don't wish to return to."

"I would like to thank you again for listening." I felt my power receding as my body became human again. That was the main problem with being a Cù Sìth I couldn't control when I would change back. Fortunately for me the man didn't seem too surprised by it. I picked the cup of tea that had been set out for me earlier and quickly drank. I thanked him and turned to leave.

"Tell Henry that his Sensei says hello would you?"  
"Sure thing…Sensei."  
I shifted to my Alt-form and took off for home not even bothering to try and be stealthy. I fly straight over the main roads and I could hear people yelling about me. Kudamon separated out from me and road in between my wings as we fly. I caught a quick glimpse of one of the jumbotrons displaying live news feed complete with the time. I fly closer so I could read it and noticed that the subject of the live camera broadcast was me that's when I saw the time.

"10:30…"  
"Hey didn't we leave around 7?" I flew away with all haste being careful not go supersonic "Onee-chan's gonna kill us."  
"She-she wouldn't really would she?"  
"I guess we'll find out."

I knew ditching the news crews while flying just under the speed of sound would be easy. That is if I didn't have to worry about hit buildings, birds, helicopters…well anything tall or airborne. It took almost twenty minutes for me to shake off all but one luckily I managed to "talk" them into leaving. I **finally** made it back and I was not looking forward to go inside, let **alone** hearing what everyone thought about me being so out in the open. Kudamon turned into light and vanished into my body so I could be him and **hopefully** slid all the way to my room unnoticed. Let's just say the hope died in the foyer where Ms Rumiko was waiting for us with a kitchen knife in hand and looking furious…my **guess**, Renamon was no longer the object of her hatred. I was.

She chased me out of the foyer and into the yard trying to grab a hold of me. Apparently Onee-chan had gone to bed already and I knew Kotemon, Sis, and Renamon were already asleep. I shifted back into a human and Kudamon separated from me going in a different direction. We were hoping to confuse her so at least **one** of us could make inside and wake someone or something. It didn't work to well; she went after Kudamon who isn't nearly as fast as an angry human. I quickly pulled out my wallet and D-Power as I pulled out Bro's Digivolution card.

"**DigiModify…Digivolution Activate!**"

"**Kudamon Digivolve to!...Reppamon!**"

"That's enough of this I won't let you chase him or I around until the ass crack of dawn!" I said

"Protecting him from you will be easy, you have a knife but I have a sword." Reppamon said brandishing his tail.

"You took her from me! You turned her into that-that **THING**!"  
"We didn't **do** anything! She probably would have changed **on** **her** **own** in another year or two anyway. How do think she would feel if **her** change happened like mine? Huh? When I changed for the first time it **wasn't** into a Digimon, hell I didn't even **meet** Kudamon until about a month ago. **No** it was into a mythological creature. A Cù Sìth, a Fairy Dog. When it happened to me **I** was in a **foreign** **country**, I was **on vacation**, and I was completely alone! I had **no one** to help me cope with it. I was seeing and talking to **spirits** meaning both dead people and other supernatural entities. And unlike Sis I **still** don't have control over that form, I can only use it when it **wants** me to and I only change back when it **forces** me to. **Is that what you would have preferred her change to be like?**"

"She-I…but…" I could tell by looking at her that she **knew**, and I mean **really** **knew**, that she had crossed the line with me.  
"Sis is lucky her **only** Alt-form is based on her Digimon partner. Someone she was so close to that she considered her to be her mother. As a direct result of Sis's Alt-form being based on Renamon she now **can** call her mother and have it feel right. When Kudamon was merged with me, **my** mother abandoned me. She **didn't** know about what had happened to me fours ago but I'm **sure** if she did she would have abandoned me sooner. My advice to you **MS RUMIKO** is that you take some time off of work and go on vacation **somewhere**; I hear Hawaii is nice year round so you **could** start there. Now I'm going **inside** to get some sleep because it's almost 11 o'clock and I **don't** want Onee-chan to kill me for not getting any sleep."

Reppamon turned into light as he merged with me and I went inside still feeling a little angry. I raided the fridge for a quick snack as I made my way to my room. I shook of my shoes and slipped on a pair of gym shorts and a large t-shirt. I looked at my scar covered right arm and sighed, I really shouldn't have blown up at Ms Rumiko but enough was enough. I climbed under the covers of my futon and realized just how tired I was as I quickly began falling asleep. Tomorrow was another day, hopefully I might get some answers, and hopefully my day wouldn't be as busy.

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Hope ya'll liked it

Later ^^;


	10. A Normal Day

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or the iTouch

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I slowly woke up as sunlight began filtering into my room. Sunday, hopefully today would be a "normal" day. Well as normal as a day gets for a human-Digimon hybrid who can channel the power supernatural worlds. I sighed as I got up; Onee-chan and Kotemon were not there. I guess they were eating breakfast; I made my way to the bathroom and took a quick shower. I looked through the clothes that Michael had dropped off for me last night while I was out and picked out something to wear. I ended up pulling on some jean shorts and a Peachtree Road Race shirt. I searched for my jacket so I could better hide my right arm before remembering that it had been shredded when I slammed into the car upon arrival in Shinjuku.

I stepped out into the garden and shifted into Reppamon so I could burn off the excess energy and digivolve back into Kudamon. Before I could even begin I heard Sis and Renamon approaching from the front of the house. I quickly shifted back as they came around the corner but Sis had already seen me. I did **not** like that mischievous grin she had on her face. It didn't help that she was in her Alt-form, I **knew** what that grin was for.

"Sis, **no**." "Yes" "No, I don't want to spar with you!" "Well…you could always spar with mother." I sweatdropped "Fine, it's either get bruised or get pulverized. So I'll take bruised. But I want to slash two cards before we start." "Go right ahead, for me this is just more practice using Diamond Storm and Power Paw."

I quickly pulled out and slashed my Stamina and Hyperwing cards. Flight would make this interesting and Stamina…well I still felt a little tired so the extra endurance would be good. Sis took up her ready stance and I dropped into sprinter's stance. We were waiting for someone to make a move. It ended up being me, I shifted into Reppamon and Sis charged at me. I lifted off the ground quickly and into the air thanks to the six wings on my back. I have two words about that choice, bad idea.

"Diamond Storm!" I protected my body by hiding behind my tail and winced as the glittering gems shredded my wings and I started to fall. I managed to recover and rolled forward in midair. "Vacuum Razor Wind!" I launched a single air blade at Sis who dodged it easily. I landed and jumped backwards dodging a Power Paw enhanced punch. I jumped again, this time towards Sis and tucked into a roll "Whirling Blade!" Sis blocked my attack with a well timed side step and jab of a Power Paw. We carried on like this for about twenty minutes before I digivolved back into Kudamon. Renamon promptly took over from me at this point and I went back inside to get **my** breakfast.

In the kitchen I found Ms Seiko, Kotemon and Onee-chan planning a girl's day out for the three of them. It seems that someone had made bacon and eggs earlier so I helped myself to what was left and sat down at the table. I ate silently while they talked about going here or there, where they would get lunch, landmarks they'd see. The conversation held very little interest to me so I just continued to eat until I had cleaned my plate. I got up and put it in the dishwasher.

"Alex," Seiko said to me "I don't know what you said to Rumiko last night but it must have affected her pretty heavily. She's already left but wanted me to tell you she decided to take your advice and go to Hawaii for a week."

"Good for her." I shifted back into my human form "Since ya'll are having a girls day out I'm gonna go see if I can **avoid** running into anything strange and at least try to have a normal day."

"A 'normal' day would do you some good…whatever 'normal' is for you." Kotemon said

"What time is dinner?" "7 o'clock, but please try to be back before then." "We will." I said as I felt Kudamon form on my shoulders

I left the house shifting into my Alt-form and taking off, I could see Sis and Renamon still sparing in the garden being careful not to destroy it. I decided to go see Takato and his family at their bakery so I shifted my flight slightly. As I got closer I had to fly lower to the street and started attracting attention so I landed in an alleyway and shifted back. I walked the remaining five blocks to the bakery as Kudamon grumbled on about annoying rubber neckers. I giggled at this, he must have picked that up from me because I knew that when I was driving I hated rubber neckers, they slowed everything down. I entered the bakery and saw Takato manning the register with Jeri lending a hand in the back with Guilmon and Elecmon sitting in the front of the counter.

"Hello Alex." Jeri said

"Mornin Jeri, Takato, Guilmon, Elecmon, so how are ya'll doing today?"

"We're doing well; my parents are sleeping in today because I offered to open this morning. You just missed Riley and Yamaki getting breakfast for the early shift at Hypnos."

"Oh well since I'm already registered, so it's not too bad. But I suppose it would have been nice to see him again."

"So what made you decide to stop by?"

"I realized that in the four days I've been here not once have I come here. Plus I also heard that everything sold here is really good. I'm kinda trying to have a 'normal' day, not that I really know what 'normal' is, if I wanted to talk to other Digimon and Tamers is there like anywhere specific I can go to?"

"You've already been there twice, the place where you bioemerged is where a lot of Tamers and their Digimon hang out at. We had a hard time forcing them all back the second time you bioemerged so they wouldn't get hurt. So as you could start there, a lot of people also hang out around Shinjuku Central Park since the permanent portal to the Digital World is there."

I thanked Takato for the information and also bought a few loaves of bread for later. I shifted into my Alt-form and took off heading back to where I first entered the city. I flew slowly so it took me about twenty minutes to reach my destination I landed on a roof with an idea. If I reached my Alt-form when Kudamon reached his Ultimate form, then maybe it could work the other way. When he reappeared it wasn't on my shoulders but on the roof next to me as Chirinmon. We jumped down into the alley next to the building and walked out onto the sidewalk, well I walked on the sidewalk and he flew just above me. We talked to various people; a girl named Rosa and her Gotsumon, an older guy named Brick and his Ogremon, and a bunch more people.

I dug in my left pocket looking for my phone to check the time and found something else. I pulled out an iTouch, **my** iTouch that I thought I lost two months ago. It had a note from Michael attached to it. The note basically said I left in his room and to keep a better eye on it. I turned it on and was surprised to see it was fully charged, never being one to care if I disturbed people with my music, I began searching for a song. I finally found one that I felt like playing 99 Red Balloons by Goldfinger. It had barely started playing when a DemiDevimon swooped out of the air and grabbed it.

"Thanks for the pawn item chump!" "Clearly you have **no idea **just how much you **JUST PISSED ME OFF**!"

The poor concrete stood no chance and neither did that little excuse for a soccer ball as I took off. I caught up to him in a split second and grabbed it back with the song blaring at max. It drew the attention of people on the sidewalk and in their cars when I threw him into the middle of an empty intersection. As I landed a chubby kid, definitely the Tamer, ran into the intersection shouting obscenities at me as he slashed a card through his D-Power. Light engulfed his DemiDevimon as he digivolved into Devimon and proceed to try and attack me. I formed ice claws on right hand and slashed at him but he flew higher, bad idea since Chirinmon was flying above us and dropped straight down on him pinning him against the asphalt. I was very glad that I had pants and not fur in my Alt-form. It meant I still had access to my cell phone, wallet and cards, and D-Power. I pulled out my D-Power and the cards from my wallet as the kid slashed another that caused Devimon to radiate massive heat, forcing Chirinmon to get off him.

"Death Hand!" Devimon shouted as he reached for Chirinmon. I responded by slashing my Alias card so he wouldn't grab anything, I had to be careful not to destroy him and only incapacitate him. I slashed my Leomon card and waited for an opening to hit him. "Fist of the Beast King!" The flaming lion head hit its mark in Devimon's chest amplified by the fact I used my left hand and energy from Muspellheim. That took him out and he crashed to the road in a heap before digivolving back into DemiDevimon. I slashed my Training Grip card and used it to bind the little bat demon and his Tamer up tight while I called Yamaki, all of this and the last lines of the song were playing.

Less than five minutes later they were both in custody and I was recounting my version of events to one of the agents. Turns out this kid had a record of thefts going back several months; they thanked me for my help in finally capturing him before leaving. When they departed I noted the silence and lack of car movement, then I heard someone clapping in a very slow almost mocking manner. I turned around to face the clapper and saw Beelzemon, Ai, and Mako sitting on Behemoth looking rather amused. Of course Beelzemon was the one clapping and I couldn't contain myself I fell over laughing at his somewhat nonplused reaction to what I had done.

"I know we need to hold back so dat we don't kill no one but dat was ridiculous." Of all the people with New York accents he was one of the few I liked.

"I felt like playing a little bit to see if he actually might be dangerous."

"I **know **for a fact dat you coulda ended it with da first blow. Still, at least you gave dees peoples a show. 20 bucks says ya make da news tonight." "Do I look 18 to you?" He shrugged and revved Behemoth "We'll see."

They drove off and traffic resumed and people went back to whatever it was they were doing. I gently took off and set my iTouch to play Libera Me From Hell, my happy mood and **mostly** normal day had been ruined. Chirinmon reverted back to Kudamon and landed on my head we flew on till we got to an area of warehouses that looked like it had few people around and landed shutting off my iTouch as I did so. I shifted so only part left of my Alt-form was the fur on my chest and I fingered the WarGreymon's Brave Shield card in my pocket. Then suddenly everything went black.

I groaned as I came to feeling very dizzy and lighthead and realized I was tied up tightly **and** on top of that I was inside one of the warehouses. I looked up and saw Kudamon tied up opposite me still out cold but unharmed, I knew he wouldn't be able to disappear until he came to. I looked down and saw that my fur had shifted back into a shirt, probably happened automatically when I was knocked out. I heard distant voices from another room getting steadily closer and closer. I tried to shift into my Alt-form but couldn't, probably had something to do with being tightly bound meaning there was a lack of space. I heard a door open to my left and looked up to see a group of people enter. I groaned when I caught sight of them it was the same JAVA people that captured me **last **time Dimwit, Blondey, Brunette and Black-hair.

"Well it looks like the **criminal** has final woken up." Said Black-hair

"Davis this is the same Kudamon from last Friday which means this man is responsible for whatever has happened to this Kudamon." Brunette said to Dimwit, well Davis I guess.

"Nina, can you confirm what Catherine said?" Davis asked Blondey

"I can't tell but if he was awake and looked at me I could make a confirmation." Nina replied

"Jake wake him up so we can see." Davis said to Black-hair

I yanked on my connection to Kudamon so that if he was put into pain, of any sort, he wouldn't have to feel it. I felt wave of freezing cold water wash over me as the doused Kudamon in it. I let some of the sensation feed back to him so he would wake up. His reaction was much the same as mine when I woke, slow. Then he caught sight of Davis, Nina, Catherine and Jake and groaned as he recognized them. Through our link he instantly learned their names and what I was doing he looked pointedly at Nina.

"What did you do to Alex?"

"He's been given a mild sedative so he won't try and break free. This isn't the same Kudamon, his eyes don't have the same look but the scan said he has no type. Do you think it's possible that there are more people that can take away a Digimon's type?"

Davis turned to me and held out my D-Power and cards "We are going to hold onto these while we try and fix this Kudamon so he can be free again."

"You're wasting your time. All you're going to end up doing is hurting him."

"Nonsense, it's for his own good after all." With that said I felt excruciating pain in my side and yelled drawing their attention. Clearly they were trying to insert a program or something into Kudamon and since I was drawing all the pain away it really hurt. I steeled myself because I knew they wouldn't give up after the first attempt failed, if they gave up at all. They tried…and tried… and tried, I lost track of the number of times they tried. All I had to do was outlast the pain and sedative so I could draw on one of the Gates to free myself. It must have been about half an hour after they started and I was still conscious despite the pain, I had started to bleed from my sides after the repeated injections. Davis was getting frustrated and examined my sides with great interest.

"I've heard that the bond between a **Tamer** and their Digimon can be strong to the point where one shares the injures and pain of the other. But THIS!" he gestured at my sides "This is insane…"

I felt the prickling on my neck like it was in stereo. "This place is about to become very unsafe, I Digimon is about to bioemerged here."

"Yea right and I'm the President of the United States!" Jake said as fog began to filter in under the door. The sedative had worn off to the point where I could visual the Gates in my mind. I stepped towards the Gate of Muspellheim and kept going till I was close enough to touch it. If could smell the ropes starting to burn slowly so I reached forward and **touched** the gate. The ropes instantly turned to ash and I got to my feet and walked over and freed Kudamon. I took my hand from the Gate and stepped away from it. I snatched my cards and D-Power from a small table in the corner along with my wallet, phone, and iTouch. I kicked down the door and walked into the other room straight into the fog. Kudamon followed right behind me and the J.A.V.A members chasing after him. I held up my D-Power and read what the newly bioemerged Digimon was aloud.

"Aurumon, Armor, virus type, special attacks are Midnight Sniper and Infrared Eye." I pulled out my Hyperchip card "Digimodify…Hyperchip Activate." Kudamon and both felt a rush of energy as the card took effect. We didn't need to communicate verbally we shared thoughts instantly and Kudamon went into battle. The Hyperchip Card made him stronger and caused my sides to stop bleeding as they rapidly scabbed over and healed. Kudamon ducked and bobbed and weaved in and out of Aurumon's slashing talons I slapped the back of my neck in pain as he landed a slash on Kudamon's neck.

"Infrared Eye!" Its eyes glowed and I realized it was facing us. I quickly slashed WarGretmon's Brave Shield and heard the surprised gasps as I felt a weight appear on my back. I quickly swung the shield off my back and brought it forward blocking the laser beams that shot at us. This was starting to get out of hand, I imagined the Gates with Kudamon and I standing between them. I picked him up and he touched his paw to the Gate of Muspellheim. His fur became orange and his yellow markings became red and he charged forward then spun his tail around.

"Bullet Whirlwind!" He struck home right in between Aurumon's eyes and it dispersed into a cloud of data. I breathed a sigh of relief as I let go of the shield and it disappeared again the people behind me gasped. We imaged that the Gates were far away again and Kudamon's fur changed back to normal as he jumped onto my shoulder. He examined the cuts on my neck, cuts that he felt he should have. He grimaced; the Hyperchip card had worn off before they could fully heal.

"You didn't have to take the battle damage to you know."  
"Yea but I didn't want you to get hurt; my body heals faster than yours."  
"But mine can take more punishment."  
"Monsters…you're both monsters." Catherine said

(A/N I suggest listening to Liberia Me From Hell starting here, youtube it)  
I turned around to glare at them and Kudamon vanished into me making them panic. I waited for them to calm down and then decided that if I was going to scare them I might as well do it properly. I shifted into Kudamon and looked directly at Nina. Everyone else was confused except for her. She sank to her knees as realization set in her eyes became teary as she understood just what kind of bond Kudamon and I had. She started to cry I walked forward and put my paws on her shoulders.

"Hey… none of that now," I said softly "it's alright. If I tried to explain it to you last time then none of it would have made sense." I tilted her head up so I was looking into her eyes and at her tear stricken face. "You have a kind heart. All you want to do is make sure that Digimon aren't mistreated right." She nodded slowly between her sobs "There is a better way of doing this, a right way of doing this. Tamers are not evil, some of them are cruel and mean but they're dealt with as soon as they are caught. I can help you…would you like that?" again she nodded slowly.

Her crying had stopped and I reached forward and wiped away the last tear before it could roll down her face. I helped Nina to her feet and we started walking towards the door with me holding her hand, giving her the confidence to accept and walk away from her mistake. When we were about halfway there I shifted back to being human and she didn't even flinch. As we got closer to the door I shifted into my Alt-form, she seemed a bit stunned by this but quickly got over it. Suddenly I heard the sound of a gun being cocked; I didn't think I just reacted. I spun Nina around in front of me and gripped her in a tight hug as I took off from the warehouse floor sending concrete flying into the air. I flew us straight to Hypnos and we made our way directly to Yamaki's office where I explained everything.

"It doesn't surprise me that they tried to shoot you Ms?"

"Tepplin"

"Ms Tepplin, J.A.V.A is not kind to those that leave their cause, no matter the circumstances. We are always looking for people willing to work for the benefit of the Digimon and the Tamers. We also have a large number of Tamerless Digimon here that you will be working with. Who knows maybe you'll end up with a Digimon partner of your own one of these days. But for now we will place you in protective custody and I will personally push your paperwork through the system as quickly as possible."

I opened one of the office's large windows "Yamaki, thanks for doing this for her." I turned around to face them and received a tight hug from Nina who had started crying again. When she let go I wiped away a stray tear and looked her in eyes. "Remember, none of that anymore," I gave her a soft smile and stood there for a few seconds before letting go of her "Gotta go." I said calmly as I stepped backwards out of the window and flew back to Sis's house.

I would be **just** in time for dinner, my day ended up being more normal than I thought it would be…albeit not as normal as I had **hoped** it would be. When we sat down to eat I was the first one questioned about my day, not that they really **needed** me to tell them about part of it. Beelzemon had been right about my fight with Devimon and his Tamer winding up on the news, for some reason they were calling me a vigilante hero. I don't fight crime for a living.

"So Brother do you want to talk about it?"

"They stole something from so I stole it back. They didn't like that so push came to shove and…well I didn't so much **shove** as throw."

I did tell them about my encounter with J.A.V.A and Onee-chan noticeably stiffened when I told them what I endured. Her expression softened however when I told her of Nina Tepplin's decision to leave and work for Hypnos. Everyone seemed happy about her decision to put her kind heart to use by supporting a proper organization. When we all finished eating I did the dishes and headed back to my room. Tomorrow was a big day, the first day of school. Tomorrow Sis and I would tell the other Tamers about her new Gatekeeper status and explain what it meant and unveil her Alt-form to them. The only thing I wasn't looking forward to about tomorrow was the school uniform I had to wear. I shift into Kudamon and crawled under the covers were I was shortly joined by Kotemon and we both quickly fell asleep.

* * *

Hope ya'll liked the chapter

Later ^^;


	11. A New Light

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon

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I **hate** Mondays, especially if it's the first day of school. I had to wake up early so I could get there in time, which meant a small breakfast. Luckily I wasn't alone as Sis had to do the same, but neither of us really liked the idea of walking to school. Ms Seiko had a great solution to that little problem, use our Alt-forms. Rather than fly we decided to run across the buildings and see who could get there first and since Renamon was already awake we decided to include her. I lost, I can run pretty fast and fly at supersonic speeds but they were just **so **much faster than me. We shifted out of our Alt-forms as we got to the school and Renamon gave Sis a hug.

"Have a good first day Rikamon."  
"I'll try to mother."  
"And stay out of trouble."

"Don't worry I'll take care of her." I said

Renamon nodded and headed off to do her morning training while we headed into the building. Considering the fact that it was 7:50 and classes didn't start for another half hour I was surprised at how packed it was. I felt Kudamon appear around my neck yawning, at least he was finally awake. As we made our way to homeroom I started drawing stares, probably because I was standing so close to Sis and no one knew me. When we finally got there I was surprised to see everyone already waiting there for us.

"The school has a pretty strict 'no Digimon' policy." Kazu said

"Well Sis, what'll you do about parent teacher conferences?"

"I'm sure they'll make an exception. But do you think **we** should leave?"

"No I don't think either of you should but, I do think Kudamon should stay inside." Henry said

"You guys aren't making any sense. You know that right? I mean I can understand it with you Alex but Rika?" Kenta asked

The three of us just exchanged knowing looks before examining everyone else's reactions to our conversation. Kazu looked just as confused as Kenta. Takato looked like he was going over something in his mind, something that clearly bothered him. However Jeri had a look of understanding on her face and she opened her mouth to say something but was abruptly cut off by someone yelling from across the room.

"You with the rat! Get waay from my girl!"

Kudamon looked for the source of the voice and I saw through his eyes a burly kid. He was probably about six feet tall, probably played a sport or two based on his muscled arms and legs. He had long brown hair and blue eyes that currently looked ready to kill. Kudamon began drawing in breath but I quickly clamped his mouth shut. As much as **I **wanted to hack a lugee on this guy I knew it would be a bad idea.

"Who are you, what are you talking about and why should I care?" Kudamon asked for me  
"I'm Blaine," he said in a hostile voice "and Rika is **my** girl. So get away from her!"  
"Sis, do you know this weirdo?" Kudamon asked  
"Hey!"  
"Unfortunately yes. He thinks that he and I have a **thing**. In all honesty I'd rather go on a date with Mother than him. Even if he was the last **human** alive."  
"So you want him to leave you alone right?"  
"I'd like that but I just can't seem to get rid of him."  
"Here that weirdo," I said  
"Sis doesn't like you and under no circumstance what so ever would she go on a date with you." Kudamon finished  
"Just don't try anything funny with my girl or I'll make you regret it."

Having said that he proceeded to turn around and walk away and take his seat on the far side of the room. When no one but the Tamers was paying attention Kudamon vanished, no point in pushing our luck and having him continue to be miss-identified. Well that and the stupid no Digimon on campus policy that the school has. I made a mental note that I'd probably have to deal with this "Blaine" person again sometime in what would probably be the near future. Hopefully things wouldn't get violent and he would just get the message and leave Sis alone.

"Alex, have you noticed that when **you** are Kudamon how much taller you are than a regular Kudamon?" Takato asked  
"No, why?"  
"Well a regular Kudamon stands about one and quarter feet tall and you stand at three feet even."  
"I'm probably taller because my human body can't be compressed to much."  
"Do you think you'll shrink again and be a regular sized Kudamon?"  
"Probably not, at least…well I hope not but I don't really know."

We continued to talk until the bell rang signaling the start of homeroom and I had to go through the whole "I'm so and so from so and so" spiel. Sis and I were rather amused by everyone's reaction when I told them she was my sister. So as not to reflect badly on Ms Rumiko I made sure to tell them that it was by adoption. I also gave the spiel about "if you hurt/ begin to bother my sister I'll kill you", of course in my case I meant it. Most people seemed to get it, most; based on what happened during gym I don't think that Blaine was in that group. Gym was our last class, I say our because I had all The Tamers in that class with me. I was standing there talking to Sis minding my own business when I'm yanked away from her and find myself face to face with, a once again angry, Blaine.

"I told you to stay away from my girl!"  
"Weren't you listening earlier weirdo, Sis **does not like you**." I replied calmly  
"**Shut up**! She says stuff like that to those losers she hangs out with all the time. So I know when she says it to me that she doesn't mean it."  
"**They are not losers**. They are her friends. However, since you seem to be in a violent mood I'll make a deal with you."  
"I'm listening." He growled  
"We'll fight, right here and right now. If I can beat you in one blow then you leave my sister alone **forever, period, no exceptions**."  
"Alright, but if I win she officially becomes my girlfriend."  
"Deal," Sis said "I trust my brother to win this fight."

Blaine took up a typical street fighter stance while I just stood there with my hands on my hips waiting. With a yell he rushed forward and swung his fist aiming for my head. I took a large step back causing his swing to be just shy of hitting my nose. He swung his other fist across trying to once again to hit me only for me to side step his wild swing. I put my hand on his shoulder and gave a hard shove sending him into the fall five feet away and causing the wall to crack. Since he didn't try to get out of the wall he was probably unconscious. He would have some injuries but nothing life threatening, one blow…well push had been enough; fortunately we wouldn't get into trouble because it would all be blamed on an accident.

We left school in a group and headed for Shinjuku Central Park, Sis and I had been dropping not so subtle hints about her being a Gatekeeper to Kenta, Kazu, and to a lesser extent Takato all day. After getting out of sight of the school I shifted into my Alt-form, I may be wearing the uniform in my human form but at least in my Alt-form I still have my khaki cargo shorts. Pants at this time of year was not comfortable, fur was okay because it breathes **very** well and always fits right…well at least if it's your own fur it does. We made our way to the same place that I had taken Sis the morning after her awakening, it was nice and secluded so we wouldn't be bothered by people. As soon as we entered the clearing Sis demonstrated one of her recently refined skills and summoned a ball of blue flame into her left hand. I laughed as everyone except Henry and Jeri jumped. We had decided that the best way to tell everyone was to just show them, so Sis took several steps forward and shifted into her Alt-form drawing gasps from Kazu, Kenta, and Takato.

"I knew it! I knew it! I thought there was something strange about that Renamon from the other day!" Jeri squealed with delight

"Brother catch!" Sis threw the fireball at me and I promptly extinguished it with ice

Next came the time consuming part where we had to slowly explain everything so that everyone would understand exactly what happened. I even included the dream about Lady Inari and Sis's kitsune heritage, they were understandably skeptical until Onee-chan arrived and backed me up. Why they didn't believe me at first I don't know, maybe it has something to do with me not being a Mega level Digimon. Then everyone wanted to see demonstrations of her powers, both kitsune and Digimon, which is when I left; no way in hell was I gonna spar with Sis so thank God Onee-chan was there to fill in. I shifted out of my Alt-form so Kudamon could appear around my neck before shifting back; I made my way towards the portal to the Digital World. That's when I heard a voice I recognized and since I didn't know many people in Japan that made it important, however what made it even more important was that it was a voice I was sure I'd never hear again. I broke out into a dead sprint heading to the portal knowing that I hadn't heard wrong, and then I saw her.

"Hikari!" she turned and her confused look turned into a smile but everyone else's didn't

"Alex! How are you doing?"

I practically tackled her as I gave her a hug and then…I felt a twinge, a twinge that I associated with my Cu Sith abilities. But it wasn't coming from me, it was coming from within Hikari and that worried me. Kudamon hoped off my shoulder and took Gatomon aside to talk to her about what we had just felt and the plan I had just come up with. As I released her from the hug I looked around at her assembled friends and I mean **really** looked at them. I recognized them all from watching the show in this world and was reaching out with an invisible veil of ice and seeing how it reacted to everyone. The only person to have any reaction other than Hikari was her boyfriend Takeru, well at least that much was good news to me and would be to her as well.

Hikari suddenly feel to her knees holding her head, I checked her forehead and found she was burning up. "Shit" I instantly switched to my Alt-form and Kudamon turned into light and entered me re-emerging as Chirinmon. Gatomon climbed on and Chirinmon took off heading towards the Wong's apartment. I picked Hikari up bridal style and found she was starting to sweat. "Put your arms around my neck." She did, I turned around and walked a short distance away.

"What are doing!" Daisuke yelled at me  
"I'm going to help her…I'm the only one who can help her…"  
"And what's that supposed to mean?"  
"Ken, Sora have your partners digivolve and follow me."  
"What are" Sora began  
"THERES NO TIME TO EXPLAIN RIGHT NOW! Please…just…just trust me."  
"It's okay guys…" Hikari said weakly "just do as he says."

Ken and Sora raised their digivices allowing their partners to digivolve and we took flight as a group. The two of them gracefully I leaving a three foot crater in my haste. I had to be careful to fly at pace where I wouldn't lose them, which was hard considering that I knew how much pain Hikari was in right now. The awakening of my Cu Sith powers had been far from pleasant, it had been complete torture. The only reason why the awakening of my ability to properly control Muspellheim and Niflheim had been pain less was because my body was mostly digital data now. We made it most of the way there…most of the way, that's when it all went to pieces as Omnimon flew past me. I looked back at the others with an expression that said "you'll be able to find me by the following the sounds of battle" before I adjusted my wings and instantly accelerated to supersonic.

I came to hover outside one of the apartments windows only seconds later as Janyu opened it and I gently handed Hikari over to him. He gave me a nod and closed the window carrying Hikari over to the couch and setting her down on it. I pulled down my mask and saw that XV-mon, Shakkoumon, Aquilamon, MegaKabuterimon, Omnimon, and Lillymon all approaching me. Stingmon and Garudamon flew past the others and straight to me I waved to them that they should get behind me and stay there. They knew, or at least figured that I didn't want them involved in this. I prioritized my targets; XV-mon and Aquilamon first, then Shakkoumon, MegaKabuterimon, and Lillymon, lastly I'd deal with and hopefully get some answers from Omnimon. Not wasting anytime I immediately put my hands together and began preparing a Shatter Blast.

"I already told you I'm the only one that knows how to help her. If you'll please just let me explain"  
"Shut up! Where is Hikari!" Taichi yelled  
"I'm not telling you that, for her good as much as yours."

All the Digimon put their partners on the roof across from me.

"XV-mon get him!"

He rushed forward and as soon as I was sure he was in range I unleashed it on XV-mon causing him to tumble to the ground and digivolve back into V-mon. This simple act of self-defense set everything off, and they all seemed to come at me at once. With a cry of 'Imperial Glacier' and a punch of my left fist I repulsed Aquilamon before he could attack and made him revert back to a very tired Hawkmon. I pulled up my mask and Chirinmon dropped down from above slamming into MegaKabuterimon with his Wind Cutter Sword. He would try and keep MegaKabuterimon busy while I a rained Shatter Blasts down on Shakkoumon.

"**Flower Cannon**!"

I got completely blindsided by that being to busy dealing with Shakkoumon to pay much attention to Lillymon. It was a definitely a good solid hit since it sent spinning down to the tarmac below, where I slid and bounced to a very unceremonious stop. Obviously I'd have to deal with her first before I could do anything about Shakkoumon, I hopped to my feet and took off at mach speed. I slammed into Lillymon carrying her high into the air with me where I spun around at about 1000 feet. With quickly whisper 'sorry about this' I dove back to the ground with her pinned and slammed her into the road surface below at supersonic speed. The effect was instantaneous as she reverted back into Tanemon, Palmon's In-Training form. Two down, three to go.

I took off and headed straight for Shakkoumon…yeah I didn't make it to him before a got smacked in the face by the flat of a sword. I guess the 'high and mighty' Omnimon had finally decided to join the battle; well this was going to complicate things. We had **hoped** that he would be content to sit and watch until he was the only one left, looks like he had gotten bored. MegaKabuterimon managed to force Chirinmon to the ground, I could feel his weight on my chest, and I put my hands together and flew straight at him before slamming my still connected hands into his side. My hopes had been confirmed when it had the same effect as a Shatter Blast, and that was definitely my last one because my hands were just throbbing in pain. MegaKabuterimon suddenly let loose a Horn Buster which slammed into me and Chirinmon, I slipped out of my Alt-form as Chirinmon reverted to Kudamon. We stood up and stared at Omnimon and MegaKabuterimon, we knew that we couldn't lose…not yet, Janyu still needed more time.

"Do you yield Kudamon?" Omnimon asked  
"Hey, Kudamon…we always fight using each other don't we."  
"Yeah…I think ever since we came back from the Dark World we become separated people again. It's just that we can share a body if we want to."  
"Then what do you say. How about this time we fight together." "Together…yeah I'd like that."  
"Do you yield?"

"Like hell he does!"  
"We're not just fighting for ourselves; we're fighting for someone important!"  
"To keep them from having to endure the same pain I did!" My D-Power was shining brightly as I pulled it out and held it out in front of me "We'll fight together to help and protect this person!"

"**Biomerge Activate**!"

I tossed up my D-Power and caught it in my left hand then swiped it up my right arm. My entire body was engulfed in light, it felt like a normal Digivolution but at same time entirely different. I felt myself falling backwards into Kudamon.

"**Kudamon Biomerge TO**!" The feeling of **truly** biomerging was…was…indescribable

"**Kentaurosmon!**"

I was up on my hind most legs and brought the other two pair slamming down into the asphalt; I got a good long look at myself in reflective surface of the office building next to me. I matched Omnimon in height standing a good thirty feet tall maybe a little taller. My body was covered in Red Chrome Digizoid, easily the strongest Digizoid alloy of them all, MegaKabuterimon and Shakkoumon's threat levels basically just dropped to zero. On my back was a pair of large gold-yellow flame shaped protrusions that I knew where wings. My breast plate was a giant wolf's head and my own head had a similar shape. Last I noticed my extremely long and large white tail, despite how cool I looked already the tail just added to it. I brought up the kite shield in my right hand, then my left arm pointing it, and the giant crossbow upon it, at Omnimon.

"Bifröst" I said calmly

I massive arrow of ice shot from my crossbow and ignited as it flew straight at Omnimon passing close enough to MegaKabutarimon and Shakkoumon to knock them off balance. Omnimon countered by shooting it with his Garuru Cannon, shockwave created by the two attacks colliding caused MegaKabuterimon to revert to his In-Training form of Motimon. Despite my rise in level to Mega I knew that all I could do was by time, I was very strong defensively but Omnimon could just rain down his shots on me. If he did that…I looked around and saw all the people and Digimon continuing to clear the streets just as fast as they could. I jumped up into the air, surprising myself with my own speed, and floated above the buildings.

"Omnimon…I have questions to ask you."

"Then ask them Kentaurosmon. Hikari is important to us and we want her back."

"Why do you want me to return to the Digital World?"

"Daemon is stirring again. He is trying to return from the Dark World. We need you in the Digital World to help us fight him should he suceed."

"The Sovereigns **can **and **will **deal with him should that occur. But what if he were to appear in the Real World?"

"He won't."

"And just how do you know that?"

"…I don't. But he would not choose to appear in the Real World."

"Why not? If all his enemies are gathered in the Digital World to stop him. It would make more sense for him to show up in the Real World where his enemies are not."

"I disagree."

"Then stay in the Digital World and defend it yourself. I may be a sixteen year old kid **and** a prank-loving Digimon but I'm not stupid. If I'm smart enough to think up that idea then I can guarantee you Daemon has thought of it to."

"As leader and founder of The Guardians the decision of troop deployment is ultimately up to me."

"To bad I quit about a month and a half ago then. I have another question for you, what do you know of Gatekeepers?"

"You, Kentaurosmon, are not one of them. The human you saved and bonded with is however the keeper of **multiple** gates. Another reason I want you back in the Digital World is so that **I **may keep an eye on him."

"Brother!" Sakuyamon suddenly appeared flying in the distance

"Sis, get inside and help Janyu as best you can I don't want you getting hurt."

"But"

"No buts, we have to protect them. I alone stand the best chance out here…Sis please."

"Alright."

"Thank you."

"Sis?" Omnimon repeated "So another Gatekeeper has awakened. This troubles me further, is this one Digimon or human."

"Human."

"Speaking of which where is your human?"

"You've been talking to me the whole time Bucket Head." I piped up from within Kentaurosmon

"What!"

"You have your way of reaching Mega and we have ours. The combination of a humans as data into their Digimon partner, hence the name Biomerge."

"There are no words to describe the sort of crime you have committed by doing such a thing! You completely endanger your partner's life by doing that!"

"I know the risks Bucket Head. You weren't listening to us earlier; we said we'd fight **together **this is not someone sided deal. It has to be something that we both desire."

"Very well then, before I defeat you tell us where Hikari is."

I ignored his demand "Bifröst!"

I launched an arrow at him and again he countered with his Garuru Cannon, this was going to get very painful very quickly. Omnimon began firing a barrage at me from his cannon. I tucked my shield in front of me and began moving in my odd sort of three jump fashion. Pushing off on all three pairs then landing and pushing off with my hind once. Landing again and this time using my middle pair for landing and pushing. Then landing a third time with the same action on my foremost pair before I took a final leap and landed on all three. I returned fire every so often; just enough to keep him distracted so I could jump again, but my rate of fire was far below his and I was getting hit quite a lot by his shots.

Strong as my armor was it could only take so much of this punishment. Even as string as I was I could only keep it up for five minutes before I was standing on the asphalt again. My armor was now heavily battered and my shield slightly beaten up. Surprisingly my crossbow, Muspellheim, was in the best condition of everything. I jumped again hoping to get in close enough to Omnimon to prevent the continued use of the Garuru Cannon. Next thing I felt was a searing pain in my chest before I was somehow looking at my back with the Grey Sword's tip protruding from it. I heard gasps and yelling but I either couldn't or didn't want to understand any of it.

"KENTAUROSMON!" I yelled

"I…I'm fine," he said forcing himself off of the Grey Sword and landing atop a nearby building "Take a good long look yourself Alex."

I flew towards him and everyone's movements seemed to slow to almost a dead stop. Kentaurosmon had clean stab wound in his chest, nothing fatal but definitely painful, his armor was cracked in some places and shattered in others. Acting on instinct I put my hands over the wound in his chest and felt energy surge out into it and watched as the wound quickly closed up. Then I saw my hands, and I mean really saw them, my skin was pale blue like ice and it glowed and around that was on orange red glow like fire. I looked down and saw that my body was human and featureless, completely smooth; reaching my hand around my back I felt that I had the same wing protrusions as Kentaurosmon, and to top it all off I was now back to my five and a half foot tall stature.

"This is your true Alt-form." he rumbled reaching out a hand for me to land on "You are in perfect synchronization with the gates for Muspellheim and Niflheim. Based on what I saw when you flew over to me your speed is probably unmatched by anyone now. However, you are not a combat machine but a survival machine. As far as physical damage goes your body is nothing short of indestructible, but you will tire easily like this."

"I understand…please rest. I'll take over fighting Omnimon until…well you know."

He nodded and I flew in a zig-zag path way directly in front of Omnimon's face and noted the startled look he had when I stopped moving. It felt great to move around and I myself felt like I was getting fatigued but also well…giggly…like a little kid who was having fun. He brought the Gray Sword up to hit me but I stopped it with my hand and a smile spread across my face at the look of shock on his face. I may not be built for combat but I was pretty damn strong none the less, probably for survival reasons, after all most mythical monsters were insanely strong. Had I been paying attention I would have noticed the Garuru Cannon being brought level with me, unfortunately by the time I did it was to late. The shot sent me flying into the air, but oddly I didn't mind it was actually kind of fun, I stopped myself and flew at him again while he fired a barrage at me. His shots moved so slow! It was so easy and fun to weave betwixt and between them stopping occasionally to watch his expression change.

Shakkoumon had decided to stop standing on the side lines and actually attack me, which he did so silently. He used his Justice Beam and it pushed me back into Kentaurosmon's hands as he caught me. I was sitting with my knees up and suddenly felt extremely exhausted but still giggly, I watched as my colors drained away and my body became human again. I fell over in Kentaurosmon's hand started giggling which shortly broke out into full on laughter. Even though I hadn't been able by much time in my true Alt-form I had had lots of fun.

"Tell us where Hikari is!"

Something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye; it was Sis standing atop the Wong's apartment in her Alt-form. She looked pleased, downright happy, that could only mean one thing to me and I sighed with relief. Omnimon brought the Garuru Cannon level with where I was sitting. If he fired, I wouldn't survive, not in my human form and I was to tired to shift. A blue-ish green streak flew out from the apartment to block the path between Omnimon and myself. I recognized the Digimon and the person within instantly and also felt the Gatekeeper family bond when I spoke to her.

"Hey, I hope you weren't in pain for to long," I gave a long pause "Hikari-chan."

* * *

Hope ya'll liked it and sorry about the cliff hanger

We now have glimpse of the kind of power that Alex has, but like the first time you do anything its not perfect

Later ^^;


	12. There and Back Again

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon

* * *

I sat there in Kentaurosmon's hand as I observed the reactions of the Digidestinied to my simple question. Confusion was present on all the faces I could see which was eight since Ken and Sora were behind me, Hikari-chan's back was to me and Joe wasn't there. Taichi and Daisuke looked to be a little mad at what I, probably about the "pain" part. I was pleased to see that Takeru's expression changed from one of confusion to relief; at least he seemed to understand and sense what had happened. Honestly I don't know why they looked so confused, was it really that hard to believe that Ophanimon was Hikari-chan? Especially considering that about a minute and a half earlier I was a part of Kentauosmon.

"Mr. Wong was able to get everything done within the first minute of your dropping me off. The rest of the time was Rika-chan explaining everything to me."

"If you and Sis weren't related now she would probably get mad at you for adding chan to her name."

"I still might. I would prefer it if she called me Rikamon, or at mimic you and call me Sis."

"Give Hikari-chan time, she'll get used to it. The reason you didn't have any trouble with it was because you had spent so much time around Onee-chan and I."

"Hey! Over here!" I turned my attention back to the Digidestined, speciffiaclly Mimi "Would you care to explain what's going on to us?"

I looked at Sis "Can you ask Janyu if we can barrow the house for a little while?"

She nodded before phasing out, returning moments later. "He said that as long as we don't make a big mess that he doesn't mind."

"Kentaurosmon, you and Omnimon will have to ferry everyone over there."

I shakily got to my feet bracing myself against Kentaurosmon's armor and managed to stay standing for about ten seconds. That's when I tried to take a step forward and fell forward onto my fuzzy little face. Ironic that it's only **after** I'm safe that I can somehow shift, despite my exhaustion. Hikari-chan flew over and picked me up, putting me around her neck. Now I understood why Kudamon always showed up around mine, it was a very comfortable place.

It took some time to get everyone off the building and gather their various Rookie and In-Training Digimon together. Once that was done it was a simple and quick matter to get everyone up to the Wong's apartment. When Ophanimon separated into Gatomon and Hikari-chan I found myself around the neck of my newest sister. When Kentaurosmon reverted into Kudamon I began to worry for two reasons. A, my D-Power didn't appear, and B in order for me to be Kudamon we had to be sharing one body. As soon as we walked in the door Janyu hooked me up to the scanner and after a minute or two of analysis confirmed my thoughts.

"I don't know how to explain this except that when Omnimon stabbed Kentaurosmon and forced you out he broke the bond between the two of you. From what the scan says your body is 75%"

"Janyu," I interrupted "I do find all of this just as interesting as you but I smell something good in the kitchen and I'm starving."

"Got it short version," he said putting a hand nervously on the back of his head "you can still shift into a human form but you wouldn't be able to stay in it for greatly extended periods of time as your body no longer recognizes it as your default form. Your powers are unaffected by the change, at least as far as I can tell."

"What about my cards?"

"Theoretically as long as it's a card that you've slashed you could draw on its effects. Kudamon should be able to reach Kentaurosmon at will now since that's the form he was in when the connection was broken. Now you can go get whatever it was that smells so tasty to you."

I hopped down from Hikari-chan's shoulders and ran off to the kitchen "Thank you." I said over my shoulder

Even with my stature diminished to a little over a foot in height I had no trouble getting open the fridge door. I could hear Koushiro and Janyu begin talking about Digimon and what had happened to Hikari-chan while I searched for whatever it was that smelled so good. I found it, though I don't know what it was or what was in it, and put in the microwave for a minute and a half. I hoped off the counter and examined myself in the stainless steel door of the fridge. Overall I looked like Kudamon but there were a few differences here and there. I had flecks of golden-brown fur, my natural hair color, mixed in with the natural white fur that I now had. My Holy Ring had "Keeper of the three gates" inscribed on it in Digicode and I also had three additional rings. One translucent one on each wrist, orange-red on the left and pale blue on the right and a solid grey one that was about halfway down my tail.

"Would someone please just put all this techno babble into plain Japanese for me?" Daisuke asked as I walked back in with…whatever the dish was

"There is no simpler way of explaining it." I said taking a bite of my snack "Maybe it would be easier if…Hikari-chan?"

"Hmm?"

"Would you please shift into your Alt-form? That's only if you're feeling up to it."

She nodded and stepped away from everyone so she would have enough space and wouldn't end up hitting anyone. She simply stretched her arms out if she had just woken up and a pair of gleaming angelic wings spread out from her back. Her hands glowed as her gloves became full and white while her socks disappeared and her shoes turned into sandals. She put her hands behind her back and flexed her wings gently before folding them. She stood there and I almost choked on my food laughing at the expressions the Digidestined had on their faces.

"Um…"Hikari-chan began to blush "surprise?"

"Hi…Hikari…what…what happened to you?" Taichi asked "What did you do to her?" his tone had now become angrier than I would tolerate

"All **we** did was stop her from being in a terrible amount of pain. If we didn't create a way for her to Biomerge with Gatomon so she would be digital during her Awakening then the pain could've ended up killing her even **if** we got her to a hospital in time."

Taichi turned to face me and fixed me with what he thought was a bone chilling glare. Yamato walked up and put a hand on his friends shoulder to call him down. The look of anger disappeared from Taichi's eyes and was replaced with a look more of confusion and fear. Yamato released his friend and looked at me raising an eyebrow. I sighed, **this** was going to take a while to explain because I would have to go very slowly and answer the questions as we went rather than at the end. It didn't help that the rest of The Tamers showed up at the door right then or in the case of Beelzemon, the Imp Twins, and Justimon the window.

"Terriermon? What are you doing here I thought you and Wallace were staying in America?" Daisuke blurted out as soon as he saw him

"What are you talking about? I live here and I don't know anyone named Wallace, I've never even been to America."

"Momentai Terriermon." Henry chuckled

"Henry's right Terriermon." Lopmon said she and Suzie walked in "You really should take it easy."

"I think I can explain some of this." Justimon said as he split into Ryo and Cyberdramon

Beelzemon set the Twins down next to me on the couch "Now **dis** I gotta hear." He said and then took a quick head count. "Uh, guys where's Jeri?"

"She's outside on the phone with her dad." Takato informed us

I looked over and saw the looks the Digistenied were giving Beelzemon as they read his data. Most of them looked confused as if they didn't know what he was doing here. Not, here **here**, but here as in like the real world. A few looked worried about him being here and others just didn't seem to know what to think. It was those that looked worried that bothered me the most. Takeru opened his mouth to speak but I quickly cut him off.

"Yes, we know Beelzemon is a Demon Lord. Yes, we know how dangerous he is…well was since he's only a danger to our enemies. Yes, we know he is considered to be a 'Digimon of Darkness', but without him none of us would be here today. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to take a nap."

I hopped onto Hikari-chan's shoulders and curled up around her neck falling asleep in a matter of seconds as everyone began talking again. Next thing I knew I was being lightly shaken awake by Hikari-chan as she was watching something on TV. I looked up at the wall clock, only twenty minutes had passed since I fell asleep, I **highly **doubtedthat everything had been explained thoroughly enough in such a short span of time. Then I heard the start of Butter-Fly and had to try very hard to suppress a giggle. Ryo must have gotten to the part where he was explaining the differences between their world and ours.

"Alex, there's something I don't understand about the way you speak." Hikari-chan began

"You want to know why I only use 'chan' when speaking to you or about Onee-chan right?"

"Yeah."

"Easy, I'm American and English is my first language. Kudamon and I still have yet to work out exactly how I'm able to speak, read, and write Japanese but we think that I'm just kinda hardwired for all the word equivalent information. Since there is no equivalent for the honorifics in English, me using 'chan' is like I'm talking to a family member I'm close to by the name I was taught to call them, it just feels…right. That's the only explanation we've been able to come up with."

"Like instead of me just calling my grandparents grandma and grandpa, I'd call them Nana and Pipop or something?"

I thought about it for a moment "Yeah, it's kinda like that. Why?"

"Daisuke thought that you had a thing for me. I don't know why he keeps trying to get me to fall for him. I'm dating Takeru-chan and…" she trailed off "Why did I just call him Takeru-**chan**?"

I face pawed at that, how could I have forgotten to tell them before I fell asleep! "That reminds me," I looked over to where Janyu and Koushiro were still talking "Janyu, I need you to modify Takeru-chan's D3 so it has D-Power capabilities and then Biomerge him." I looked back at Hikari-chan "I does that answers your question Hikari-chan?"

Yamato walked over to us and scratched me behind the ear. "Thanks for at least giving us a warning about Takeru."

I rubbed into the scratching hand "To be honest I didn't know Hikari-chan was a Gatekeeper **until** today. The more time goes by the more I new abilities I discover. When I hugged Hikari-chan this afternoon I felt her power stirring and laid down a mist and the only people it reacted to was Hikari-chan, Takeru-chan, and myself so at least no one else amongst ya'll is a Gatekeeper."

He sighed "Takeru…he'll be okay won't he?"

I nodded "Like I explained earlier Biomerging him with Patamon makes him half data. Instead of the process being horridly painful it becomes painless because the body treats it like additional data and it just sort of adds on to you. It's not a perfect process and he and Hikari-chan won't be able to use their true or more accurately Perfect Form unless the need for it actually arises like it did today for me." Yamato looked a little crestfallen "Ah! You don't need to worry about him. He's a part of my family now. I'll protect him, and you've seen what I can do."

"Yeah, just don't push yourself to much. You've got three siblings to look after." he said chuckling

Before I could reply Takeru-chan, Hikari-chan, Sis and I all stiffened followed shortly by the the Digimon.

"What's wrong?" Miyako asked

"Four Digimon are coming…" I hopped off from Hikari-chan's shoulders and went to the window "They're strong…at least Ultimate, but even still they're strong for that level."

"Beelzemon, can you, Jeri, and Elecmon stay here in case things get out of control?" Takato asked

"Yeah just make sure yous guys make it back in one piece. Got it?"

Takato gave a quick nod and they left the building heading for the where ever the Digimon would be Bioemerging. I was still to weak to be able to help, it was…not infuriating but definitely aggravating. I was stuck staying behind as **the** last line of defense for everyone in the room. I stayed where I was in front of the open window a place I intended to stay until my friends came back. It has now become obvious to me that fate just **loves** to pick on me because after standing there for all of about five minutes I was swept up by someone as they flew past. I looked up at the person who grabbed me as we flew off to a nearby building and low and behold fate once again decided to pick on me. I was being carried a LadyDevimon, at least that left no surprises as to who two of the other four signals were.

But the fourth signal was still up for grabs since we knew for a fact that Daemon was still stuck in the Dark World. I didn't bother to struggle I knew she was too strong for me to fight; a Rookie versus a high end Ultimate was not a battle but a beat down. I soon learned who the fourth signal had belonged to. He stood a little over seven feet tall and wore a blue pin-striped suit over which he had on a grey trench coat with red trim and cuffs and a red scarf draped over his shoulders. He had on spike topped boots like Beelzemon and in his left hand he held what looked like a Tommy Gun while in his right he had a knife that he was fiddling with. The top half of his head looked like a rat's with a pair of horns growing just above his red eyes. His grey hair reached down to the middle of his back where a small pair of purple bat wings, each topped with a spike, sprouted from.

"Ah," he said in a bored voice "I see you found him without my help." He pointed the knife at me

LadyDevimon gave a shrill laugh "It was so easy to get a hold of him Astamon! He was standing right in front of a window, they even left it open for me!"

"Now all we are waiting on is your…**associates**."

He pointed his knife behind us and LadyDevimon turned around so I could SkullSatamon and MarineDevimon heading ourway. Once they joined us atop the building I noticed The Tamers quickly approaching from off in the distance. The one known as Astamon acted quickly and began chanting some words in an odd language as a circle appeared around us. Darkness flowed up from the edges of the circle before coming back down atop us and pulling us into, what I was sure was, the Dark World. The last words I heard before everything became silent was Beelzemon shouting out his 'Corona Blaster' attack.

Soon enough the inky black walls gave way to the grey sky of the Dark World as we continued our descent to its surface. We landed on the coast of the Dark Ocean in front of Daemon himself, who looked quite pleased. I felt horrible…like…like I had just been used as a living soccer ball in a 24/7 tournament. The worst part was I could feel my Cu Sith powers tugging at me, wanting me to assume that form. But now was definitely not the time for that, right now I needed to play it safe. I still had no idea **why** I was brought here in the first place.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you Daemon." Astamon said in his bored voice as he began to walk away.

"What about payment? I do owe you something for this; tell what it is so I may settle my debts now." Daemon said

"No need to worry yourself over that. It will be collected on its own in due time." He replied coolly as he vanished

Daemon led the way, heading off towards the cliffs that lined one end of the coast. The closer we got to the cliffs the harder it became for me to suppress the urge to shift into a Cu Sith, wherever we were going there was something there that wanted to abuse my powers. My paws started to change but I managed to force them to change back…maybe I could learn to control that form like this. We got to the cliff and went into a cave lined with small lamps to provide just enough illumination for us to travel. The tunnel ended in a massive circular room that had stairs lining the wall with openings every few hundred feet. Near the middle of the room was round metal plate suspended from the ceiling, to me it looked like a giant grocery scale. I was tossed onto it and the group stood around the edges waiting, I continued to force myself to change back as they watched with agitated looks.

"Why don't we just **force** him to change?" SkullSatamon asked

"Such a feet is not possible." Daemon said "If it were then we would still need to bring **him** here."

I let my entire body shift "Ahhh, looks like he is willing to cooperate."LadyDevimon said and I promptly shifted, I had finally gotten the hang of it, causing here to sneer "Just stay as a Cu Sith!" she bellowed

There was a sudden rumbling and hundreds of shadowy creatures began flooding into the room from the tunnel and the stairs. They made quite a racket and while there were many of them they didn't come very close to the scale instead forming circle around it with an opening leading to the main tunnel. They fell silent as a shuffling sound was heard and a disfigured silhouette appeared in the opening of the main tunnel. I recognized it…well sort of, as Dagomon. He had been badly burned across his face from my Magma Pillar that I threw at him when I had left. I let myself shift completely and shakily stood up on my four legs.

"So glad you could aid us for this momentous occasion **Lord** Dagomon." Daemon said

"This had better work or else it will be your hide Daemon."

"Just begin the process and I will be able to uphold **my** end of the deal."

With a grunt Dagomon lurched forward and pinned me beneath one massive…'hand'. I started feeling weird; light headed, dizzy, like my mind was becoming foggy. I felt a searing pain on my tail; the gray ring had apparently carried over into this form. They were trying to either suppres or destroy my memories. Sights flashed before my eyes, people, places, and things I held dear, the gray ring was trying to help me fight. I saw a memory from when I was little and fell in a creek by the house one December. Bro had carried me all the way back up a massive hill and into the house where he helped me change clothes and warm-up. I asked him why he was doing all this he said "I'm your brother I'm supposed to protect you. Who knows…maybe someday you'll be doing the same for someone else."

"Soon we will be free of this world and you can claim your bride." Daemon said with barely suppressed laugh

Bro's words echoed through my head. I couldn't lose here! Sis, Hikari-chan, Takeru-chan, and the others needed me and I **had** to protect them. Dagomon gave a sudden yelp and released me; I opened my eyes realizing that I had closed them at some point. I got a quick look at myself in the reflective surface of the plate. My fur was sort of fluttering like fire in light breeze, my entire tail included. My fur color had changed to the same glowing pale blue of my Perfect Alt-form and just like that form I was surrounded by a glowing orange-red aura. The gray ring had vanished, I could hear Daemon swearing under his breath as he and his cronies began backing away.

"Daemon! This wasn't supposed to happen!" Dagomon yelled looking over his shoulder at the retreating Demon Lord

"You." I said calmly in a voice that echoed and carried a sort of silent power "I gave you a warning of finality when we last met. You still lust after Hikari-chan and wish to harm her and the others that I hold dear."

Dagomon began to shiver and the Daemon Corps had already fled the cave. Ice large enough to be seen from the floor began forming on the ceiling high above. The air around us began shimmering with heat as the shadow creatures stood rooted to the spot. Dagomon started backing up towards the main tunnel and fell over as he stumbled in his haste.

"This time, you will not survive."

The shimmering heat suddenly burst into a roaring torrent of flames. Dagomon and his minions were incinerated instantly, but I let the flames continue to rage on, reaching down the tunnels and engulfing the ceiling. I watched with fascination as the plate and chains melted away. The walls began to glow and started sliding to floor as the rock turned molten from the intense heat. After a few minutes I was standing atop an enormous pile of molten rock. I tapped it curiously with my right forepaw and watched as it instantly cooled into glass covered in a thin layer of ice.

I had no idea where Daemon and his group had fled to and I didn't really care that much. I was to busy trying to remember what I was doing **before** I had been brought here. I remembered a room with a small group of people, I knew them all but could only remember the names of two of the people; Hikari-chan and Takeru-chan. I brushed my cloudy confused memories aside for now and focused on the Gates, I could feel three of them now. Muspelheim, Niflheim, and another that felt different; instead of a gate it felt more like a crossroads or hub. It felt like it could lead to any number of places, wherever I wanted to go it could take me there. I focused on the Hub, on making it usable, and watched as what looked like a grey version of MagnaAngemon Heaven's Gate appeared before me.

I instinctively knew how to use the gate to travel and focused on where I wanted it to lead to, a clearing in Shinjuku Central Park. The gate glowed briefly before the doorway covering it slowly slid open revealing the clearing on the other side of it. I leapt through the gate and after landing turned around and watched as the door closed and the gate disappeared. I remembered being there earlier with my "twin" sister Rika and other people, we were showing them something. It was still mid-afternoon but I was tired and curled up on the ground and quickly falling asleep.

When I woke up night had fallen and the stars shone brightly in the cloudless sky above. I stretched lazily as I got to my feet and looked around before leaping above the trees. I bounded through the park, startling the occasional couple, and eventually came across a large reflecting pool. I landed at the edge and took a better look at my reflection as I once again pushed back some of my foggy memories. My features seemed to be a mix of fox and hound, equally lithe and large. What I found the most interesting were my eyes, white rounded rhombuses edged with the same orange-red glow as my body.

"I've got a strange signal." I heard a woman say

"Where?" a man asked

"Shinjuku Central Park, next to the reflecting pool."

I looked around and didn't see anyone…maybe…maybe they were talking about me. I ran out of the park and onto the nearest road, which was thankfully devoid of people as I began to run down it.

"It's moving. It's left the park heading north down the road."

"This is Gallantmon, I see it."

I looked over my shoulder and saw a winged knight clad in crimson armor flying some distance behind me. I started to panic; I didn't know who these people were, why they were after me or how I could hear them. I picked up my pace as the road ahead of me starting to ice over as I did.

"It's picked up the pace and the road ahead of it is starting to freeze over."

I stepped onto the ice and my speed picked up even more as I seemed to flow across it. Flames sprang up behind me melting the ice after I passed over it. I heard Gallantmon say something but ignored it, I was too busy trying to escape. The road ahead dead ended into a T-junction and I took a left, continuing to pick up speed. The ice had shrunk from blanketing the entire roadway to just a thin strip ahead of me and the flames followed suit.

"It's headed your way Justimon."

"Understood, I'll stop it in its tracks."

What did this Justimon person intend to do to stop me in my tracks? I soon found out as he jumped down into the road about a thousand feet ahead of me. He raised his large mechanical right arm and with a yell of Thunderclap brought it slamming down onto the road. The road surface cracked and faulted, parts of it jutting up into the air, including the bit right in front of me. With my footing disrupted I jumped over him and landed about thirty feet behind him in a heap, all that energy I had used earlier had finally caught up to me. Even with the short nap I had taken earlier I was already exhausted again.

"I stopped it. Everyone converge on me."

I lay there on the ground with my back to him too exhausted to rise, as he started to approach me. I squeezed my eyes shut; I needed protection, something, anything. I heard his footsteps stop followed by muttering something about firewalls. I cracked one eye and saw that I was again surrounded by flames, not nearly as hot and large as last time but hot enough and large to protect me. It was a few minutes before I heard more people arrive and begin talking to Justimon about me.

"I can't believe what has happened here. It left no fire damage, not even scorch marks." Gallantmon said

"We **have **seen weirder stuff before."

"MegaGargomon has a point. What do you think Sakuyamon?" Justimon asked

"Based on what you've told me about the way this thing acts it seems like its scared. Plus there must be something wrong with all of you; I don't feel any heat coming off of this 'fire'."

"Sakuyamon, wait! What are you doing?"

I lay there where I had fallen with my back to the voices hoping theses people would leave me alone. I had closed my eyes again as I lay there on the road shielded by fire. I heard footsteps but dismissed them as just being someone walking around the outside, but if that was true why did it sound like they were getting closer? A pair of strong comforting feminine arms wrapped themselves around me just below my forelegs and lifted me off the ground leaving my hind legs hanging and my tail brushing the ground. I caught her scent amidst the flames, she smelled kind of like Sis. I slowly opened my eyes and looked up into the partially masked face of a strange woman, how could she be standing here in the middle of my protective fire and be unharmed? Unless she was someone close to me, but I didn't recognize her, not completely, I knew I had seen her before but I couldn't remember where or who she was.

"It's okay." She said in a calming double voice "You don't need to be scared anymore. I won't hurt you."

"You smell kind of like someone I know." the flames started to die down

"Oh" she said in an amused voice "and who might that be?"

I closed my eyes and rested my head against one of her shoulders "My sister." I said as the fire died and exhaustion over come me.

* * *

What a twist!  
Hope ya'll like it

Later ^^;


	13. Superstition

Disclaimer: Don't own Digimon

* * *

I woke to the loud buzzing of my alarm clock. I lay there in bed for a minute or two before getting up, crossing the room and shutting it off. I opened my closet and pulled out my tie-dye Hilton Head t-shirt and favorite pair of khaki cargo shorts. I carried them the short distance to the bathroom down the hall and turned on the shower like I did every day before school. I took my time in the shower thinking about the dream I had just woken up from, it had all seemed so…so real. By the time I had dried off, dressed, and gone downstairs my mom was already packing our lunches for the day. I packed my backpack and clipped my lunch box to it before heading to door to the garage.

"Have a good day at school."

"I will Mom."

I caught the bus at the corner of my yard and as I climbed on something, or rather someone, caught my eye. Standing across the street was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. Despite the heat she wore a simple white long-sleeved shirt and pants. Her hair was straight, shoulder length, and light pink laced with occasional streaks of blonde and tinted purple around the end. Her skin was pale like the moon and she stared at me with her light orange eyes filled with worry and concern. I felt like I knew her, but…there was no way…this was the first time I had ever seen this woman in my life. My bus driver said good morning to me in her Louisiana accent like she did every school day. I was still confused about that woman and my dream so I didn't give my usual response.

"What's a matter hun?"

"Huh?" I said coming back to reality "Oh, it's…it's nothing."

"Mhm. Hun I've been drivin you to school for the past two years. I know when somethin's botherin you."

I gave a small smile "I had a crazy dream last night. The short version of it is that I was part Digimon, was living with **the **Rika Nonaka, hanging out with **The** Tamers, had supernatural powers, a sort of 'family group' that also had supernatural powers, **and** met the Digidestined."

"That **is** a pretty crazy dream."

"But that's not the weirdest thing. When I was getting on I saw a woman…she was beautiful. I've never seen her before in my life but… for some reason I feel like I know her..."

"Well for once, I don't know what to tell ya. I suppose the only thing I can say is since your head isn't sure, use your heart."

School for the most part was relatively normal and boring like it always was. Except in one class were my teacher was talking about an ancient legend. In the person in the legend had special powers and was able to awaken dormant powers in others. It was…interesting…to say the least, a bit confusing, but interesting. After school I rode with my friend to the nearby park where we held Cross Country practice.

During our warm-up I was thinking about my dream last night and the woman I saw this morning. One of my teammates asked if I was alright. I looked at him and then over his shoulder gaping at the person I saw behind him. Standing on the side walk, arms crossed, and still looking worried was the woman from this morning. She started walking off down the sidewalk. Ignoring my teammate's outrage at leaving I began to go after her, someone grabbed me but I shook them off and pushed past the others as they tried to get in my way. She somehow managed to stay a few feet away from me but why? Why did I know her?

"Onee-chan! Wait up!"

I don't know why I called her that but it seemed to do the trick because she stopped walking. I ran up and stood alongside her, breathing heavily as I caught my breath. She smirked slightly at my actions and crossed her arms behind her back while she waited on me. When I caught my breath I realized where we were and I gasped at the sheer distance we had traveled in such a short amount of time. We had made it to downtown Atlanta, but there was something…wrong with it.

"Do you remember who I am?" she asked in her gentle voice

I thought about it for a moment "You're…you're Dianamon…my older sister, my Onee-chan. Right?"

"Yes."

"Onee-chan, where are we?"

"Well, the simplest explanation is your subconscious."

"Meaning?"

She shrugged "You're asleep and this is simply a dream."

"So then…the 'dream' I had last night"

"was not a dream but real." She finished for me "You can remember it easily enough here. But there is something here, something keeping your memories locked away when you are awake."

"…How do I find this thing?"

She looked a little surprised "Just like that? No, asking me to prove it? No, demanding me if I'm lying?"

I shook my head "No, I figured out what's wrong with here in the city. Why it's not real." She raised a questioning eyebrow "It's not real, because a city…a real city, has people in it."

"Well, the first step is looking for something that's out of place."

I looked around. We were in Centennial Olympic Park, so why weren't there any water jets in the ground? More importantly, since when was it paved over with asphalt? If this subconscious dream world is based off of my memories, then it shouldn't be paved. I knelt down at the edge and glared at the asphalt. Then…it twitched.

It tied to surge away from me, too bad this was my dream world. A slab of stone wall fell in front of it, and then another and another till the three of us were surrounded by a high wall. A small circular portion of the black creature had remained in front of me, still connected to the main portion by a thin length. A single black eye opened on it and looked at me from the ground. I stared right back at it.

An eerie voice echoed through the world "Stay." It said "Stay and see what could have been."

The sky darkened to an odd purple. I held my right arm in front of me. It was plain and unscarred like it was before. I grinned, light appeared on it in patches as my scars reappeared. In an instant my body took on the same appearance as my Perfect Alt-form with some key differences. My wings were now larger and bird like and I had the same tail as when I was last awake. But the most significant difference was that I now had metal covering in the same place that Flamedramon had his armor minus my head. There were no claws sticking out of the metal but were it covered my hands and feet it looked like the basket of a claymore and the open ends had a grey ring around their rim.

My short hair had become longer and billowed behind me like my tail. I had semicircular metal bands in a few places: each one on my forearm, upper arm, quads, back, and three on the top of my tail one at the base, the middle, and near the end. The edges of the bands glowed a dull white. Fire and ice spiraled up my right arm and around my metal fist. I lifted it up.

"Not interested."

I smashed my fist down into the eye and fire and ice lanced through it and across the surface of the mass. It faded away into nothing as the ground and sky turned white. I let myself shift into my Kudamon form, my primary body. Hanging from my Holy Ring was a white card with a light green reading edge to it. In the middle of the card I could barely make out a gray ring surrounded by fire on one side and ice on the other.

"That was an interesting form."

"I think it's like a final form or a Mega level. I know that I normally won't be able to just jump straight to it."

I could sense Onee-chan nodding "Very true."

A swirling blue portal appeared in front of me "Before I go back there are two things I want to ask you."

"Ask away, Oto-chan."

"How are you able to be here?"

"The Gate of the Moon allows me…limited access to the world of people's dreams. And the other question?"

"Why don't you walk around dressed as a human more often?"

"It would draw the…improper, type of attention to me." She said with a smirk

I nodded and walked into the portal. I felt myself sort of falling. The blue light swirled around me and grew darker till it was black. I groaned as my eyes slowly came open. Suddenly the wall was flying by me and I became aware of the fact that someone was carrying me. I looked up and saw Sis in her Alt-form with relieve on her face looking down at me. I felt the white card that had appeared hanging from my Holy Ring in my dream sitting on my chest…my dream. My mind jumped back to the legend my teacher had spoken about and felt tears well up in my eyes and I started to cry.

"Brother, what's wrong?" she asked as we entered the family room where everyone, Tamers and Destined, was waiting

"It's my fault," I sobbed "If…if I hadn't come here…n-none of this would ha-have happened t-t-to you, H-H-Hikari-chan, or T-T-Takeru-c-c-chan."

They all looked at me puzzled "Oto-chan," Onee-chan spoke up "that legend said he awoke only powers that were dormant. The thing with dormancy is that it always comes to an end. This would have happened to them eventually even if you hadn't met them."

"Brother," Sis said in a quiet voice "I'm happy that this happened to me."

I slowly stopped crying as the full impact of what she said to me kicked in "You…you are?"

She nodded as did Hikari-chan and Takeru-chan. I looked around the room at the stunned and confused looks on everyone's faces. They had never seen me breakdown before. Not once in the short and trying time that I had been with them. I sniffed as the last of my tears stopped.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Three days." Jeri said "We were starting to worry about you."

"Whenever she was home Rikamon would refuse to leave your side unless absolutely necessary." Renamon said

I slowly climbed up and around Sis's neck letting my card hang over her shoulder "Yeah Rika-**mon** seemed really worried about you." Kazu joked only to have a small blue will-o-wisp thrown at his feet

"Only Mother is allowed to call me that." Sis said with a growl

"Calm down Sister Rika." Takeru-chan said "He's just trying to egg you on."

"Hey Takeru-chan, since I've been out for so long have you and Hikari-chan learned what you are Gatekeepers of yet?"

"We think it's a gate of Heaven."

I nodded "Based on her Alt-form that makes sense. If I had to guess I'd probably say it's one of the lower spheres of Heaven." Everyone looked at me in confusion, I sighed "Ever heard of Dante's Inferno?" a few the older Destined nodded "Well its part of a trilogy called the Divine Comedy. The last part of it is called Paradiso and is about Dante's journey through the nine Spheres of Heaven. I know that somehow, he got all his information regarding the Sphere's of Heaven right." Everyone looked a little stunned at that "Hey Sis, can we go outside? I'd like to see Takeru-chan's Alt-form. That is if he can use it."

He nodded and we went out into the garden. He crossed his arms and his clothes became a simple white robe and sandals while his wings spread out slightly behind him. I was rather impressed by the complexity of his change. There was someone clapping, someone in the tree. I young girl with greenish skin, violet eyes, and short brown hair wearing a light pink kimono hopped out of tree, followed by a pair of ravens one normal one albino.

"Rather impressive for a non-perfect form." The girl said "I told the two of you that he would be here." She pointed at me

"It seems you did not lie." The albino raven said in a heavy French accent

"We got lucky Joan, that's all there is to it." Said the other raven in a heavy British accent

"Richard must you be so pessimistic?"

"I'm still dreaming." I said face pawing "Onee-chan, you **can** forcibly wake me up by pouring water on me or something."

"I assure you Oto-chan, this is no dream I see and hear them as well."

"Um what are you two talking about?" Taichi asked

"Are you telling me you see a little girl in a pink kimono and two ravens one black and one white?"

"**We **see the two ravens but there's no girl." Koushiro said

"If you can see the girl, raise your hand." Onee-chan, Sis, Hikari-chan, and Takeru-chan raised their hands along with Sora and Yamato

The girl giggled "So we have five Gatekeepers and a pair of Seers. All though **he** is more like nature spirits. So that leaves the question of whether or not I should consider him family of my own. What do you think Richard?"

The black raven now identified as Richard grunted "Sakura, I think it is a decision for him to make. Especially since he **is** our new leader."

I cocked an eyebrow at him "Care to explain because this is news to me."

"As the current keeper of The Hub gate you are basically in charge of all the spirits in the world." Sakura said smiling

"Please tell me there's a way out of this job."

"You can die of old age. Trying to die any other way is just a waste of time." Richard said

I grimaced "So there's no way out and I can only die of old age. Terrific, that throws a wrench in plans for my second death being cool." Everyone who couldn't see Sakura looked very confused "Would someone please fill the others in on what's happening since they can't see or hear the bulk of the conversation."

Yamato gave the others a brief summary of what was going on "Since you're our new boss you should get acquainted with **what** we are." Sakura said

"And in the case of Joan and myself **who** we are." Richard said

"**I** am a dryad. You know a tree spirit. But I'm not really important." Sakura said

"I am King Richard the First of England. I have been acting as the Regent for the spirits of the British Isles since the last time we had a leader about 200 years ago."

"I am Joan of Arc, the current Regent for the spirits of France."

"Sakura is this tree yours?" she nodded "Then you're pretty important to me because I'm living in this house. That means you're the closest link I have to the rest of the spirits. But being called Leader sounds to old school, what do ya'll think about calling me Boss?"

"You're giving us a choice?" Joan asked

"Why not? I **am** in charge right?"

"Right Boss." The three said in unison causing Sis to giggle

"If I need to reach you how can I do that?"

"Just call and we will come to you as quickly as we can." Joan said

"Then spread the word to the other Regents on your way home. I **don't** want to deal with any little crap. If something really big happens let me know and I'll come deal with it. But, for the most part I'll probably contact ya'll if I need help."

"Understood." Joan said

"And another thing, don't be so formal."

"Got it Boss." Richard said

"Then what are the two of you still doing here? Off ya go now." I said

Richard and Joan took off and flew away into the night sky leaving Sakura behind with us. I still had other questions but looking around I saw that everyone else looked pretty tired. I didn't want to deprive everyone of their sleep and based on the way they looked they needed it. Sis looked especially ragged, even though it was harder to notice in her Alt-form she seemed the most tired. I couldn't have that.

"Hey why don't you guys get some sleep. I've still got some questions I want to ask Sakura."

I hopped down from Sis's shoulders and waited for everyone to go inside before shifting into my animal like Alt-form. Sakura gaped at me for a few seconds before she realized what she was doing. Her mouth quickly snapped shut with an audible click. Her branches seemed to sway a little in what I assumed to be embarrassment based on her reddening face. I couldn't help but laugh at her actions, it was understandable since she had seen my imperfect Alt-form and seen me digivolve before. It was her first time seeing me in a Perfect Alt-form so her shock was kind of understandable.

"It's okay, this is only my second time using this form so I'm not entirely used to it."

"Oh…well, I…I can kind of relate to that."

I raised a nonexistent eyebrow "Can you explain what you mean?"

"It…it would be easier to show you." she said digging in the dirt with her foot "But," she hesitated "I've…I've been teased…by some of the other Dryads for this. I've always found humans to be so fascinating; I wanted to find a way to walk among them at some point. And I truly mean walk among them in such a way that they could see, speak to, and touch me."

As she spoke her body began to change. Her skin lost its green tint and became tan while her hair and eyes both became green. I smiled, but based on her reaction she couldn't tell by my face. I walked up to her slowly and concentrated on my human form and felt myself slowly shifting into it. I was standing directly in front of her as the last of skin took on its natural color.

I knelt down and put a hand on her shoulder "I think you've got a very special talent here. The others are just jealous of it. This human body of mine used to be my primary body but now a Kudamon is. But I have a question for you."

"Yes?"

"How far can you go from your tree when you're like this?"

"As long as I take a small clipping with me I can go all over the city. But maintaining this form requires a lot of my energy."

"Well then what do you say to a night on the town?" she gave me a confused but hopeful look "If you start getting tired you can use some of my energy, okay."

"Sure. But…"

"Yes?"

"You're clothes are different from what you wore on Monday."

I blinked and looked myself over, she was right; I wasn't wearing my school uniform. Instead I had on a grey matrix-esk trench coat with the collar standing up and blue and red belts. I had on a pair of dark blue jeans with a combat knife strap horizontally at the back to compliment my running shoes, and a red sleeveless shirt. Around my wrists were the same colored bracelets from my Kudamon form and around my neck was a loose fitting gray ring. My white card hung from a fine metal chain long enough for me to put it into an inside pocket of my coat.

I smiled "So it seems." I stood up "Now let's pick out a clipping before we talk the night away. Do you have any branch in particular you want the clipping from?" She pointed to one of the lower branches. "Is there anywhere special that you want to go?" I pulled out my knife and cut a small leaf covered twig off.

"Well, Shinjuku Central Park would be nice. I can talk to some of the other spirits and you can introduce yourself."

"We'll have to get you some more things to wear since people don't typically walk the streets in kimonos. All you have to do is pick out what you want to wear and I'll pay for it."

We left the house and went to a nearby clothes shop; needless to say we got a lot of strange looks on the way there. Sakura went through a lot of different clothes and styles before settling on a pale yellow shirt and pink shorts. When it came time to pay I couldn't find my wallet so on a whim I swiped my white card through the credit card reader. For some reason that worked and judging by the look on the clerks he was just as surprised as me. The rest of the journey to the park was uneventful enough except for the odd question or two from Sakura about human culture. We were walking along one of the narrower paths when I noticed that she started breathing more heavily.

"What's wrong?"

"My energy is running out. I don't think I can keep this form much longer." I touched the clipping that she had in her hair and imagined it filling with energy; she breathed a sigh of relief as it glowed dimly.

"Thank you." she said a bit breathlessly

I gave her a smile that quickly turned into a grimace as I heard a sharp whistling in the air. I grabbed her with my left hand and brought her in front of me as I spun so my back was to the sound. The whistling became a sort of rustling sound as something slammed into my back. Something made of…wood? As it impacted I was faintly aware of the fact that it was being blocked by a concentrated area of flames causing it to splinter into burning strands that arced around in front of me. Once I felt it retreat my right hand went to the handle of my combat knife.

"Who is this human?" voices seemed to whisper from the trees

"A friend." Sakura said

"Lies." the trees seemed to shout back

"Your friends aren't very nice are they?"

"They're…they're not all my friends. Like I told you before a lot of them pick on me because of my fascination with humans."

I let go of my knife and took a step back from her shifting into my animal Alt-form "So who should I prune first?"

The whispering stopped as Sakura giggled at my joke. A girl the same age as Sakura with short light orange hair and crimson eyes in a dark green kimono hopped out of the tree in front of us. She gave a deep bow.

"I'm very sorry about what has happened." She said in a rather mature voice as she straightened up "My name is Maple. I saw you the other day when you came through The Hub. I did not know that you were a human that is why I attacked you when I saw you getting so close to Sakura."

"It's alright. I would have done the same thing. Now stop being so formal, there's no fun in formality."

"Unless you really spell it wrong." Maple said with a giggle as I shifted into my Kudamon form

"Well said." I hopped onto Sakura's shoulders and curled up "When you see me I'll probably look like this so don't hesitate to talk to me. For the most part I'm going to let the Regents continue to be in charge but if something big happens I'll take care of it. Would you be so kind as to help spread the word?"

"Sure, and again I'm sorry about…you know."

"Like I said don't worry about it. Now, is there anyone else here that I should be introduced to before we go back?"

The next twenty minutes was a flurry of activity with dryads, tanuki, bakeneko, a pair of oni, and surprisingly enough a kitsune, all introducing themselves to me. Most of the time was spent as a mass Q and A session with it going back and forth between me and them. I had a few problems to sort out right of the bat. First and foremost being no you are not allowed to eat humans no matter how tasty they look, but playing harmless pranks was okay. Second no harassing Digimon or humans with Digimon because the occasional Wild One or fanatic group does enough of that already. Lastly was that there is **no** super maid or anything of the like so they still need to make sure they pick up after themselves. With the Q and A session done I found that I had become quite tired, so after saying our goodbyes Sakura and I returned home. She promptly changed back and disappeared into her tree which I climbed up into and quickly found myself sleeping once again.

* * *

Hope ya'll like what I did there.  
Now we start throwing in more of the supernatrual stuff. This chapter was originally going to have Alex, Hikari, and Takeru going to a sort of spirit club where everyone was basiclly partying. But I might do that in a later chapter.  
Certain spirits will exist in both The Tamer's world and the Digidestined's world. Don't ask why just roll with it.

Later

^^;


	14. Arguements and Compromises

Disclimer: I don't own Digimon

* * *

"Brother" Sis said nudging me softly "time to get ready for school."

I waved her off mumbling to let me sleep longer. She hmphed at me and nudged again getting a grunt in response. She sighed and I was nudged, this time with greater force, and I felt wind whipping past me. My eyes opened in shock when cold pond water suddenly washed over me. I rolled over and gracefully swam to the edge of the pond hearing laughter as my head broke the surface.

"Ha ha, very funny Sis." I said climbing onto land

"**You** didn't want to get up."

"Rikamon, I hope you don't make a habit of doing this."

"Well **now** I need to bathe. Who knows how dirty that water is."

I made my way into the house and to the bathroom. I was surprised to see that the shower was already on. I stepped under the cascade of warm water and sighed as it warmed my damp fur. I grabbed a large bottle of shampoo and easily popped open the lid. I was wrestling with trying to get the liquid out when Sis's hand reached in, took it, and poured a generous amount of it on my head and back.

"Thanks." I grumbled

"You're welcome. I'll have to see if Rumiko has any of those free shampoos you get from hotels left lying around."

As I scrubbed myself I realized just how hard always having fur would be.

"Hey Sis, why do I have to go to school **now**? I thought the school had a no Digimon policy."

"They do, but we have friends in high places and thanks to your…condition, the school board decided that it would be a unique opportunity to see how students react to the presence of a Digimon in the classroom."

"So do I have to take notes or something?"

"No, just be you and try not to cause any trouble."

I reached up to shut off the water but it was too high. I **could **stand on the side of the tub but I might slip. So I just kept trying to reach it from the bottom of the tub. Sis giggle at my antics and after a few seconds reached up and shut the water off for me. Drawing the curtain aside she dropped a hand towel on me. After the towel was completely soaked my fur was still damp.

"It would be nice if my powers could be used in a more domestic manner."

"That'll be the day, a living hair dryer."

I crossed my arms and hmphed at that. I failed to notice both the steam that started to rise off me and the glowing of my red ring. Sis knelt there staring at me. I was getting very annoyed by that when I finally notice my wrist. Uncrossing my arms I watched as the last of the steam vanished along with the glow.

"Well **that** was unexpected."

"I wonder if I'm safe to touch." Sis picked me up and put me around her neck.

"Question answered." She said as we walked toward the kitchen.

When we got into the kitchen we found Hikari-chan, Takeru-chan, Sora, and Mimi eating their breakfast. I was hoping, **hoping**, that we would make it where I could jump onto the counter before being noticed. I **sincerely** want to know why fate picks on me so much. I was quickly swiped off Sis's shoulder by Mimi who proceeded to bombard me with questions and petting. I opened my mouth but before I could answer Sis gave her a look and I was promptly returned to my perch where I had half a slice of toast shoved in my mouth.

"We'll see you guys at our school's assembly this afternoon." Sis said as before phasing us there

"What assembly?" I asked as we entered the building

"Because the school is letting you continue to attend they had to make a public announcement about it. Some major anti-Digimon group isn't happy about it, obviously, so they pulled some strings and are having the school host a 'guest speaker' of theirs to talk to the student body and anyone else that feels like attending about the 'unnatural menace' as they call it. Of course their speaker also wants you up on the stage as well so they can ask you questions and such."

I face pawed "**Great**, cause I just **love** talking to **anyone** who does **anything** remotely political."

"Relax, I may not be allowed on stage with you but Yamaki said he's sending someone from Hypnos to act as you're 'handler' who can be up there with you. He said it's someone you know."

I just grumbled and swung my tail up to my paws and held onto it like a child's stuffed animal. The day progressed smoothly from class to class, most people didn't seem to care that I was there at all. It was only the girly girls that seemed to be very distracted by me, no doubt because of what was coined as my "cuteness factor". Fortunately they seemed to be more afraid of Sis than they were attracted to me. The "assembly" was scheduled for after lunch and by now I was really not looking forward to it. Despite the fact that Bro wanted to be a politician he once told me that man everyone should have a general sense of mistrust for them. I had more of an outright hatred for them because **usually** they did absolutely nothing but waste time.

The gym was the location where the assembly was being held and a stage complete with curtains had been hastily erected. Sis left me backstage where I had to wait until it was time for me everything to begin. I heard the clicking of a woman's high heeled shoes behind me. Turning around I saw a woman wearing a black business suit with her blonde hair pulled back into a bun. She looked at me and gave me a gentle kind hearted smile as my jaw dropped in realization. I smiled and jumped at her. She deftly caught me and pulled me into a gentle hug.

"Nina! How have you been? I didn't know that you were the person Yamaki was sending."

"I've been doing great. It's taken some adjusting but the rest of the staff has been very helpful." She put me around her neck

"Glad to hear it. So who's speech am I listening to and answering questions for?"

"That would be me." A man in a blue suit stepped out of the shadows facing us "My name is Yasunori Matsumoto. I'm here representing the Human Protection Agency."

He stepped onto to the other side of the curtain with us following suit as we were ushered out by someone. I looked around at all the assembled people and picked out The Tamers and Digidestined sitting almost front and center. Most of them smiled at me or flashed the thumbs up. I gave them a brief smile before Nina walked to stand behind the podium that had been set up for us. I jumped down and curled up on the top of the podium waiting.

Mr. Matsumoto began to speak "Good afternoon students, faculty, and guests. My name is Yasunori Matsumoto and I'm here speaking on behalf of the concerned members of the Human Protection Agency. As you are all no doubt aware one of your classmates, Alexander David Sinclair, has recently under gone a rather unfortunate and permanent transformation into Digimon. Alex, would you please stand up."

I was already annoyed by this guy and it clearly showed on my face as I stood "That's **Mr. Sinclair** to you." I half growled at him

"As you can see, **Mr. Sinclair** is very sensitive about his condition. His increased aggression is no doubt due to the Digimon part of him, but I can assure you all that the HPA has its top scientists working on a way to cure him. In the meantime they would like you all to be informed of the dangers posed by the Digimon." By this time I had lain back down "All Digimon have a set of attacks which they can use to protect themselves from danger or attack others. Mr. Sinclair, what are your attacks?"

"Hm? Sorry I stopped paying attention after you decided I was **diseased** and needed to be cured. Could you please repeat the question?" This got a few snickers from the audience and a rather shocked look from Mr. Matsumoto

"I would like to know what your Digimon attacks are. Would you please tell us?"

I scratched my ear "Bullet Whirlwind is the only one I know. I'm aware that I probably have others but couldn't care less as to what they are, let alone how to use them."

"I see," Mr. Matsumoto began slowly "in any case Mr. Sinclair's **single** attack is more than sufficient to cause significant bodily harm to a person and possibly even minor structural damage. Knowing the destructive and violent nature of Digimon it does not take a stretch of the imagination to see what could occur within this building. While the HPA does have the utmost faith in the education system we believe that allowing Mr. Sinclair to continue to attend this school poses a greater threat to the student body than any Wild One that bioemerges."

I hadn't realized I was growling until I felt Nina gently set her hand my back. I stiffened at the contact before exhaling slowly. I rubbed the sides of my head with my paws. This guy had **seriously** pissed me off with his political and physiological mumbo jumbo and I'd be damned if I was gonna stay here and let him continue to insult me. I stood up on the podium.

"I've had enough of you **Mr. Matsumoto**." practically spat his name "Yeah; I've been turned into a Digimon so bite me." Shock was the general reaction in the room "Ya'll forget I was born and raised in Southern United States. Sure, I've got manners. But, like **most** American teenagers I also don't put up with bullshit. And most of what I have heard you say is **indeed** bullshit, ranking in at grade a. I know that I'm **supposed** to try and behave myself during this but as a teenager who doesn't put up with BS I can't. Its true Digimon are dangerous and therefore by extension so am I. But as history has taught us humans are equally as dangerous. While Digimon that want to do nothing but cause wanton destruction are still an unfortunately common thing they are handled far quicker and safer than they used to be." For the second time that day I failed to notice a red glow

"Mr. Sinclair, I would like to remind you that we are aware that you are a victim of unfortunate circum"

I flicked the small claws on my left hand at the ground by his feet where a scorch mark promptly appeared causing him to pale.

"Dumbass, I'm not through with my rant. Save all untrue and pointless comments and questions until after I have left your **very** obnoxious presence far enough behind that my sensitive ears don't detect you. I am no victim, I wound up like this because of choices that **I **made; **me** and no one else. So to even **remotely** think otherwise is pointless. Back state side I **chose** to help someone. I** chose** to travel here to Shinjuku and I **chose** to let this happen to me. Now I'm choosing to go to the park and majorly momentai for a while."

I hopped down from the podium and off the stage heading for the door; we had probably been talking for no more than ten minutes.

"Mr. Sinclair please wait! If you would just put your Digimon instincts aside and listen to reason for a moment"

I glared over my shoulder at him watching him shiver visibly as my right band glowed blue and the temperature in the room began to drop.

"Shut…up." I said slowly

"Mr. Sinclair"

"I said SHUT UP!" I yelled "I am putting my instincts aside, why do you think you're still living? Even if I **was** still human I wouldn't be normal! Fire and ice aren't things a **normal** human can produce and control at will. Before you say anything neither can the Digimon species that I've become. I would implore you that if you remember nothing else from our 'discussion' to remember this. Although good is always represented as being nice and sweet and girly lovely, the reality is that it doesn't have to be. Know that when my patience is gone good I will not be nice."

I narrowed my eyes at him before facing forward and walking out of the gym. He called my name once on my way out and rather than ignore him like I should have I popped him the bird. Once outside the door the room started to get noisy, I sighed angrier at myself for losing control of my temper than anything else. I shifted into my human Alt-form and walked outside before taking off. I admired the scenery bellow as everything seemed to stand still because of my speed. That was the tradeoff between my two Alt-forms I **knew** how to use, unlike the one from my dream world. One was hyper fast while the other was clearly hyper powered.

Rather than fly to the park I decided to see just how high I actually **could** fly like this. I slowed my speed down so I could keep better track of my vertical climb distance. I could hear air traffic chatter in my ears, probably for the same reason I somehow heard Sis and the others on Monday. I made it pretty high, easily breezing past twenty kilometers. It was odd but for some reason I had no trouble breathing where I rightly shouldn't even be able to I made it to about fifty kilometers before I had to stop. I let gravity take over and entered a freefall from where I was. I heard over an air traffic warning about a falling piece of space debris, it took me a second to realize they were talking about me.

Oddly enough I didn't feel the heat of reentry, just a slight warming to my skin as I fell; it was so much fun, being in free fall like this. I had probably made it to about fifteen kilometers when I was snatched up by Imperialdramon and a group very annoyed looking Digidestined and Tamers. I shifted out of my Alt-form and after we landed in the park was lectured for the next half hour about my actions. It didn't really register to any of us that I was completely unharmed by my flight **and **freefall. When they were finally done with the lecture I sighed.

"I made it about fifty kilometers into the air with no trouble and then free fell thirty five kilometers and barely felt any heat at all."

"Fifty kilometers," Ken said "You were at the edge of the Stratosphere. If you had hit the ground there would have been a lot of damage, to both you and the area."

"I would have caught myself before I hit."

"There would still have been massive shockwaves from the speed at which you were traveling." Henry said

"I bet if I was in **that** form I could fly even higher." I mumbled to myself

"You know," Taichi began slowly "you haven't told us what happened to you after you vanished into that black dome thing."

I gave everyone a brief but informative summary about my second trip to the Dark World. Everyone was surprised about the willingness Dagomon showed to work with Daemon. However, they seemed worried when I mentioned the ease with which I destroyed him and the area; I just wish that I had more proof that he was actually gone. When I began telling them about my return I left out the part about being able to hear them talking. Finished with my narrative I looked around at their concerned faces, now they all knew I was being sought after and in all likely hood it was for the power of The Hub.

"I think we should take Alex back with us tomorrow." Daisuke finally said, everyone looked at him "Think about it, that Astamon guy was able to find him here and Daemon now knows that **this** world is heavily protected. He'd have to be pretty stupid to try and show up here."

"Doesn't that mean Brother should stay here where he is better protected?" Sis asked

"No," I said "Daisuke's right. All they would do if they came here would be wait for a time when I'm by myself and snatch me up then. In our world there is kind of the unspoken rule about how not all evil looking Digimon are evil. If any type of Devimon shows up here without making a fuss people assume it has a Tamer when it might not. Based on past experience in their world most evil Digimon are probably treated to immediate suspicion."

"That still leaves the problem of Astamon.," Koushirou said "What did he mean by saying his 'payment taking care of itself'? From your description he sounds like an evil business man."

"Lex Luthor incarnate minus the megalomania." A few people raised their eyebrows "From the impression Astamon gave me all he cares about is business. My guess about whatever the 'payment' was is that it somehow involved me and a giant maelstrom of fire."

"Payment in the form of data from the Digimon you destroyed." Henry mused "Makes sense."

"But that's just it, I…I don't think it was the data he was after." I hesitated "I feel like…I don't know I feel like Dagomon isn't dead and that Astamon had something to do with it."

"He was at ground zero when your fireball ignited, there's no way he could have survived." Iori said

"I don't know it wouldn't be the first time any of us thought someone was done for but they were still hanging around. I mean look at the examples we have; Myotismon twice, Vajramon, and Musyamon, one Mega, two Ultimates and Champion." Kazu said

"On top of that Daemon probably loaded the data of Dagomon's minions cause it's doubtful that he would have allowed his lackeys to." Kenta said

"If he did then that means he has to reappear in our world." Takeru-chan said

"Why's that? I was dragged away to the Dark World here so why can't he come out here?"

"Um…" Hikari-chan began

"Yes?" I said slowly

"I um…I **might** have been the one who pulled you into the Dark World…"

"How would you manage something like that?"

"I was kind of panicking and just wished for someone, well anyone really, to come and rescue me."

"So…why did it pull me in? Wait…you don't think that maybe The Hub sort of phased me there do you?" I lapsed into thought

"It's a possibility." Henry said "Even if you couldn't actively use it, the power **was** still there. Plus there's still **a lot** we don't even know about your powers."

"You're just one strange power after another." Terriermon said

"Terriermon."

"I know, I know, **tact** right?"

"Right," I said "I've made up my. I **am **going with Digidestined when they return home tomorrow." Takato opened his mouth to protest but I cut him off "No buts. This is non-negotiable and before anyone says anything the only people from **this** world that I would let go with me are Sis, Renamon, and Onee-chan. Sis can take on the appearance of a Digimon and her Gatekeeper abilities will help her. Renamon and Onee-chan don't have to worry about blending in with Digimon for obvious reasons. If and when Daemon and co. show up we'll have two extra Mega's that they won't be expecting and that will play into our favor. Plus if everyone left then this world would be defenseless."

"There's no point arguing with him." Sis said "Brother's got that same look in his eye that Takato does whenever he's set his mind to something."

"First we'll have to tell Hypnos and I'll apologize for not controlling my temper during the 'assembly' today."

"We already talked to Nina about it." Sis said "Apparently Yamaki was expecting you to get mad. The fact that you didn't actually attack Mr. Matsumoto but only threatened him strengthened the point that not all Digimon are mindlessly destructive. But," she gave a quick smack to the back of my head "I **was** told to give you that for the fireball you flicked."

"So that's the apology out of the way but ya'll have to inform Hypnos for me. I have Boss business to attend to before leaving the park."

"One of us should stay with you then." Ken said

"Any volunteers?" Sora and Yamato raised their hands

"The rest of us will finish getting ready to leave while The Tamers deal with Hypnos." Taichi said, everyone nodded

"Sora, Yamato, follow me."

I started walking down the path towards the same path where, last night I had met Maple. Sora and Yamato chatted the entire time we walked. I was grateful that people ignored me as I still had a lot on my mind from our little meeting. We got to the area of the path that I was pretty sure Maple had landed on. I looked around for a little hoping to catch sight of her, but gave up after a few minutes and just called out her name. She promptly leapt out of one of the nearer trees and gave a respectful bow.

I raised an eyebrow "Didn't I tell ya'll last night not to be so formal."

She shrugged "As the humans say 'Old habits die hard'. Since you called me there must be something I can help you with right?"

"I'm leaving this world tomorrow and going to another one. I don't know how long I'll be gone but my ground rules that I set last night still stand. Would you please spread the word around for me?"

She bowed again "Certainly."

I swear I could feel my eye twitch "What did I say about being formal?"

"Just trying to rile you up Boss." She said giggling as she jumped back into her tree

That evening I sat in the upper branches of Sakura's tree thinking about what I had been told last night and what I had decided to do tomorrow.

"Penny for your thoughts?" I looked to my left and saw Sakura sitting next to me

"I'm just thinking about tomorrow…and about what you said last night. Is old age really the only way I can die?"

She was silent for a moment "In these modern times it's the only probably way for you to die because your body heals **a lot** faster than a normal human or Digimon."

"I don't understand what you mean."

"Well…" she said looking down at her feet as she swung them "they don't behead people or burn them at the stake anymore and with hospitals keeping a large supply of blood you're unlikely to bleed to death."

"What about organ damage?"

She shook her head "As long as your brain, heart, and **most** of your body is alright you will heal. You'll be comatose for a while but you'll wake up once you've healed enough."

"That's all well and good but, my body is mostly digital data now."

"I may not know much about Digimon but I know their digicore fills the same role as internal organs so as long as it's intact you should heal."

"So it's not that I can't die by normal means, it's just that I'm really hard to kill."

"Mhm, is there…anything else Boss?"

"…Yes."

"Well."

"…"

She threw an arm around me "Well come on then Boss, out with it!"

"Howoldareyou?" I mumbled quickly

"Hmmm? What was that Boss? Speak uuuup!" she said cheerily

"I want to know how old you are okay."

She looked a little taken aback at my brusqueness but quickly smiled "As my people count time about as old as you are 16 or so."

"If you're 16 then why do you look like a little girl?" I jabbed my hand at her

She shrugged "Call it personal preference, but in human years I'm far older."

I raised an eyebrow "How** much** older?"

"208." She said in a of matter fact tone

If she hadn't had her arm around me I would have fallen out her tree "You're kidding right?"

"No such luck Boss. Dryads age about a year for every thirteen that pass."

"I **know** this tree is not 208 years old."

"We aren't bound to a single tree for life. When one tree dies we can move on to another and it's not like this is my **only **tree."

"What do you mean this isn't your **only** tree?"

"Ooooh, you'll find out." She giggled "You'd better go inside and get to bed. Unless that is you want your Sister to give you another lesson on flying and swimming tomorrow."

I blushed "You saw that?" why was I blushing?

"Mhm," she giggled "but don't worry Boss, I thought you looked cute swimming in the water like a fish."

My blush deepened further, thank God for my fur. I may be oblivious but even I could tell that Sakura was flirting a little with me. She was right though. I did **not** want a repeat of this morning. She was right though, there was a lot ahead of us tomorrow and I would need to be well rested for it.

"You're right," I sighed "I'll sleep inside tonight."

She took her arm off me and I jumped down "Goodnight Boss."

She disappeared into the tree and I went inside. Despite the fact that Kudamon and I weren't partners anymore we still had a very slight connection. I followed it to the Living Room where I found him on the couch with Kotemon leaning against fast asleep. He glanced at me and flashed a smile. I gave him the thumbs up before going to my room where I curled up and went to sleep.

* * *

FYI Alex **is** fire proof and he can be killed. But like Sakura said killing him if he was a flesh and blood human would be really hard, combine that with the fact that as a Digimon his body is even more durable and the only way to ensure he's dead is to destroy his Digicore and you get one person who really won't stay down unless you go overkill on him. But he can still be hurt like a normal person.

Questions? Comments? Drop 'em if you got 'em

Later  
^^;


	15. Border Crossing

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon

* * *

Sis woke me up at eight in the morning, the Destined were on a timetable and were expected back at noon. She had already shifted into her Alt-form before waking me so I took my usual perch around her neck before we went into the kitchen where Sora, Mimi, Hikari-chan, and Takeru-chan were setting out breakfast. We ate quickly and in relative silence. Relative because Sis and I were being briefed on the how we, Renamon and Onee-chan were going to be introduced. We were to be the so called "ambassadors" of the Southern Quadrant and everyone already knew not to say that we were from a parallel version of earth. Sis would be staying in her Alt-form most of the time to avoid raising suspicion and hopefully we wouldn't have to explain about being Gatekeepers to Hikari-chan and Takeru-chan's parents.

After we finished eating breakfast we left and made our way to the park, meeting up with the other Destined in small groups as we got closer. When we got to the park we did a head count and gear check to make sure everyone was there and had the things they brought here with them. I was a little nervous about going back into the Digital World after the **last** **time** I was there. What worried me wasn't the possibility of being chased around and attacked and all; no, it was Magnamon who was going to meet us when we entered and escort us to the Quadrant Gate. If for no other reason than I knew from Kudamon's memories that he was a sore loser and might **still **be angry at me for forcing his retreat.

We entered the gate and everything seemed to be spinning for a few seconds before we were standing upright in the desert that was the lowest level of **this** Digital World. I was feeling very dizzy but thanks to where I was I was in no danger of falling over or off. Magnamon was waiting about ten feet away from us and greeted us with a cheery wave. From the look on both Daisuke and Vmon's faces they still had trouble believing some things about the Southern Quadrant and the earth connected to it. Who could blame them though?

It was about two hour's flight to where the Gate was located and on the way we talked about all kinds of stuff. One of the main things was how Digimon were a little less accepted in the Destined's world despite having saved it multiple times. People weren't very keen on the idea of just waking up one morning and discovering that they now had a Digimon partner. Some parents were especially unhappy with this because they remembered the destruction that they had caused. Since Onee-chan is a Mega so hopefully no one would be dumb enough to attack her. Renamon and Sis can phase in and out of normal space whenever they want so they're fine. As for me…well I can control fire and ice.

We had to alter course once or twice to avoid the data streams that constantly criss-crossed the surface of this level. That and to shake off the odd Wild One that felt like trying to attack or follow us. We made it to the cave where the Quadrant Gate was about fifteen minutes ahead of schedule despite the detours. When we got to it I was truly awed, while it was impressive in Kudamon's memories, seeing it up close and personal was something else entirely. It was massive at least a hundred feet tall and seventy-five feet wide. Rather than being ornate it was made of a plain dull colored metal. Alphamon was standing in front of the Gate looking rather bored with having to wait for Magnamon to come and relieve him. Magnamon flew up and they tapped hands, Alphamon gave a small nod to everyone before silently leaving the cavern.

"So…how do we open it?" Sis asked

I saw Omnimon look down at me "What?"

"Aren't you going to"

"I don't know how. That's one of Kudamon's memories I don't have."

He sighed "How do you use The Hub?"

"The **one time** that I **have** used it, I was in my Alt-form and I somehow knew that I had to have a specific destination in mind, otherwise it could've spit me out **anywhere** in **any** world. But this gate is different; it only goes to one place and nowhere else."

"So it's just like an ordinary door then?"

"I guess."

I could tell that if his eyebrows were visible he'd have raised one of them. Then it hit me and I face pawed. He started laughing at my revelation. It was so simple; if it were a snake it would have bit me. The Quadrant Gate worked like an ordinary door because each side only led to one place. I started laughing as I explained it to Sis and Renamon.

"Even though I know how to open it **now** there's still the not so little problem of size." I hopped down and crossed the distance to the Gate leaning my back against it I couldn't see the dull glow of my gray ring and the glittering of my White Card "A Digimon as small as me couldn't possibly open a door this"

I was cut off by a loud creaking and abrupt fall as the door I was leaning against swung slowly open behind me. Everyone started laughing at my fall as the door continued to open farther. It stopped when it was wide enough for Omnimon to walk through without any difficulty. Sis walked over and picked me up, returning me to her shoulders. The rest of the group gathered round and tied a rope around Sis's waist.

"It's so we don't get separated from each other. When we passed through it to get here we ended up scattered across the room. On our side, the Gate is sitting at the edge of a lake in a huge forest." Hikari-chan said

"I'll just hold on to Sis. Her fur provides really good grip so I'll be fine."

"Suit yourself Brother Alex."

We lined up Omnimon in front, Sis and me in the back. One by one humans and Digimon walked into the light of the open Quadrant Gate. Soon enough it was our turn. Once I felt myself hit that light I knew something was wrong. I felt a jolt of pain surge through my body as we flew through the surrounding light. I lost my grip and fell off Sis's shoulders tumbling off to the side as the rings around my wrists and tail shattered into data which was quickly entered into my body. I heard Sis calling out to me, reaching and trying to grab me but before she could the light vanished and I saw a lake rapidly approaching me.

"F."

I splashed down into it and sank a good fifteen or so feet in the clear cold blue water. I as soon as I recovered I started swimming straight to the surface. I was almost there when I couldn't hold out any longer and breathed in. Rather than start drowning I somehow felt…refreshed, as though I **had** drawn in fresh air and not water. I paused in my swimming and breathed in again, same thing. I floated there thinking back over the Norse mythology I had studied after learning about my powers. Ginnungagap, the place that existed **between **the worlds of Muspelheim and Niflheim, where the fire melted the ice and created water. It must have been an indirect connection to it because I held the Gates to the places that created it.

I stayed below the surface as I swiftly made my to shore, barely noticing the light glow my body emitted. A glow that I had now come to associate with the more subtle use of my Gates. Rather than swimming I seemed to flying effortlessly through the water, maybe Sakura had been right and I **was** a Nature Spirit and not a Gatekeeper. But then again, we still didn't know very much about the full extent of our powers. I had landed pretty far out in the water but made it to shore quickly. When I climbed out and started breathing in air I began coughing up the water I had breathed in.

"You realize this wouldn't have happened if you had just let us tie that rope onto you to right?" Sis said as she phased in front of me

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know but on the plus side I learned I can breathe underwater." She put me around her neck and phased us back to the rest of the group

"What happened?" Taichi asked.

"I don't know. One second I'm fine then as soon as we walk into the light I'm in pain."

"What happened to those other rings you had?" Mimi asked

I quickly checked my wrists and tail before remembering "They shattered into data but there wasn't a lot of it and I can still feel all three gates so I guess they were just aesthetic."

"Then as soon as the press conference is over I'm taking you shopping."

"Sh-shopping! You don't have" I sputtered

"Nonsense of course I do, those rings looked so cute on you. Think of it as my way of repaying you for the kindness you showed while we were with you."

"No really you don't"

"Just give up now," Takeru-chan said "once Mimi decides to take someone shopping there's no getting out of it."

I gave a sigh of resignation "Fine I'll go, I'll go. But only if Takeru-chan comes with us."

"Done." Mimi said causing Takeru-chan to groan

The rest of the trip was on foot but we ended up meeting a lot of Digimon along the way. For us it was very strange. We were so used to most of the Digital World being an empty dangerous desert. All this greenery and friendly Digimon was a bit off putting. One or two of them got a bit too close for our liking and were lucky to walk away with only a bruise or two.

After an hour and a half of walking we made it to our next stop. It was a large village ruled by ShogunGekomon. It was full of Gekomon, Otamamon, Floramon, and Mushroomon who rushed to greet us. Well everyone but me for some reason. They tried their best to keep their distance from me.

"I don't bite you know." I said

They just continued trying to stay away from me until Mimi got angry and started yelling at them about manners. We went to ShogunGekomon's castle where we had a quick lunch. After we finished eating we made our way to one of the upper rooms. Inside the room was a simple TV, the gateway to the Real World connected to the Eastern Quadrant of the Digital World. After a quick review session to make sure we remembered everything Miyako held up her D-3 and we were engulfed in light.

I blinked. We were on a stage in some kind of auditorium twenty five chairs with microphones in front of each had been set up behind a long table before us. They had only been expecting one ambassador and we had already decided that Sis was going to be speaking. Everyone took their seats and I stayed put around Sis's neck as she sat down, Renamon and Onee-chan stood just behind us. As soon as they took their places we were bombarded with questions about us and the Southern Quadrant.

"Hey Sis, can I pick the first one?"

"Why not there's so many of them I can't really decide."

I pointed to one of the people about midway back who was obviously wearing a toupee "You with the hair piece!"

"What is it like living in the Southern Quadrant of the Digital World?" he asked clearly annoyed at my calling him by what he wore

"The Southern Quadrant is far less peaceful than the Eastern Quadrant. We often fight to the death, the victor consumes or 'loads' the data of their defeated enemy. Most of the Quadrant is made up of a vast and barren desert. For the more peaceful Digimon there are 'data packets' which are a collection of old and discarded data which can be used for food or medicine. There are other areas of the Southern Quadrant ranging from the simple to the bizarre and it's not uncommon to go for days without seeing another living being." Sis said

I pointed to someone else this time a woman in the front "So are you saying that unlike most of the peaceful Digimon in the Eastern Quadrant, those of you who live in the Southern are more warlike?" she asked

"No, because most of our Quadrant is barren we have to fight for our survival. However, it is not uncommon for Digimon of the same species to gather in groups and work together for protection."

A guy way in the back "If you were attacked by a human, how would you repsond?"

"I'd try and leave the area as quickly and safely as possible."

"What if you had no choice but to fight?"

"Then I would try and reason with the human and if I had to fight back I would be as gentle as possible to prevent permanent injury."

"So you don't deny that you would willingly attack a human?"

"Only if there was no other option and they would refuse to listen to reason."

This person was starting try Sis's patience. We tried picking someone else but the guy wouldn't shut up. We eventually had to pause everything while security came and threw him out. There followed several more questions concerning human-Digimon interations before the press conference came to a close. All the reporters filled out and soon it was just us, the Destined and their families. Introductions followed shortly thereafter, everyone seemed very glad to meet us. We worked out who was staying where; Onee-chan and I would be staying with Takeru-chan and his mother, while Sis and Renamon would be staying with Hikari-chan and her parents.

Once that was all settled Mimi wasted no time in placing me around her neck and dragging Takeru-chan, Palmon, Patamon and I off to the nearest mall. By the time we got there it was 12:45. Mimi dragged us from shop to shop showing me her favorite places so as to go along with the whole "ambassador" charade. She finally picked out a store that carried items for smaller Digimon like me. I was surprised by how full the shop was at this time of day, but then again it was Saturday. The shop was had all kinds of things from shoes and shirts to plastic blades of grass. Mimi began grabbing things here and there as we traversed the crowd and made our way to an open table where I could stand and try on the things Mimi picked.

We ran through I don't know how many things before I finally realized she wouldn't let us leave until I picked something out. I took a more active interest and finally settled on pair of Aviator's and a plastic wheat stem. The Aviator's reminded me of Bro and the wheat stem because I liked it. Mimi was giggling about my choice as I stood there on my hind legs with my hands on my hips. I held the stem in the left side of my mouth at an angle and with the sunglasses on I looked like the stereotypical laid back country boy.

"That's a good look for you." Takeru-chan said genially

"Thanks, it's not something I could pull off if I was, well you know."

"I still think you should get a jacket to complete it." Mimi said

"I'd like to but if I have to shift at a moment's notice I can set these down. But with a jacket I'd have to take it off first so it doesn't get destroyed."

We went to the register and the cashier made some adjustments to the sunglasses so they would fight perfectly. We paid for the two items and left the store heading for the Amusement Park where we had agreed to meet up with everyone. We attracted a surprising amount of attention on the way. I don't know if it was because Mimi, Takeru-chan and their Digimon were famous or if it was me that everyone was being drawn to. Either way we had to deal with a lot of people on the way.

By the time we made it to the Amusement Park it was already 2 o'clock. We spent the next three hours riding the rides while being "informed" about the human world. While we were waiting in one of the lines a small orange sun with a flame on its head holding a D-3 in its mouth appeared in front of a little boy. The Digimon introduced himself as Sunmon telling the boy that they were partners. The boy and his family seemed overjoyed by this.

"Did anyone sense him before he appeared?" Renamon asked

Everybody shook their heads "It's like we thought. The barriers in this world are still weak from the Dark Towers and the destruction of the Destiny Stones." Sis said "That means we won't be able to tell when **they** show up."

"They might already be here. They could be bidding their time till we have our guard down." Onee-chan said

"Onee-chan," Hikari-chan whined "don't say things like that. You'll have us all jumping at our own shadows."

"Ironic considering you are the Child of Light." Renamon noted

"It's more disconcerting to me than anyone else." I said "Normally we, and me especially, can sense other Digimon before anyone else, probably because of the Gates, and we didn't even get a blip on the proverbial radar."

We left shortly after to get diner at a nearby, Digimon friendly, restaurant. The staff was a mix of humans and Digimon. They all were happy to meet new customers and made that known right away. It took us about an hour to eat diner food was really good. Afterwards we spent the next two hours being shown around Odaiba. As early as it was we were all very tired so we agreed to meet at a park by the Fuji TV station tomorrow. Iori, Miyako, Armadimon, and Hawkmon all still lived in the same building as Takeru-chan and Patamon so our home bound group was pretty large.

I was wrapped around Onee-chan's neck and more than once I felt like we were being followed. I looked back once or twice and didn't see anything odd, but I did feel like **I** was being watched. If anyone noticed they didn't say anything. We got out of the elevator on the eighth floor. As we entered the apartment Takeru-chan, Patamon, and Ms. Takaishi lived in I thought I heard someone whispering in my ear.

"Did ya'll say something?"

"No," Takeru-chan said "why?"

"I thought I heard something."

"Is that why you looked back those few times on the way here?" Onee-chan asked

"Sort of," I hesitated "I felt like we were being followed. But whenever I looked back there was nothing and I felt like someone or something was watching me."

Takeru-chan closed the door behind us "You're just letting what Sister Dianamon said earlier get to you."

"I guess you're right…"

We watched TV till about 9 o'clock when we finally decided to go to sleep. Onee-chan slept on the couch in the family room. I curled up in a chair by one of the windows. Everyone else fall asleep quickly, but I felt restless. I didn't know why till I heard a woman's voice clearly whispering in my ear.

"Good evening, little lost cu."

My eyes snapped open and standing there in front of me was a woman in her early twenties. I couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was. From her pale softly glowing skin to her deep brown hair. Her blue green eyes were full of both delight and curiosity as she looked at me. She was wearing a long purple dress.

"Um…hi." I said nervously "Since you called me Cu does that mean you're a fairy?"

She giggled and gave me a warm smile "Indeed I am. Titania has sent me."

"Who?"

She sighed "I was told you may be ignorant of some things."

I raised an eyebrow and she quickly raised her hands in an apologetic manner.

"I'm sorry I meant no offense by that." She said quickly

"It's okay."

"Titania is the Fairy Queen. She wants me to watch over and, if need be, rescue you."

"Oh…am I, like important or something?"

"Yes, you are first Cu in nearly two centuries. In the old days we had hundreds. But very few of them were part human."

"So what happened to them all? Oh and I'm not just part human, I'm also part Digimon."

"Most still live, there is even one who is part human, but they are all quite old and tired now and your being part Digimon is an illusion created by your fairy blood."

"What about the scans that have been taken? They say otherwise."

"They say that your body is mostly **data**. But not all data belongs to Digimon little cu."

"I have a name you know."

"True but not one that I may call you, Titania has yet to choose one for you and as such I can call you naught but cu."

"Think she'll let me keep my current one?"

She walked over and looked out the window "No. But she **has** taken a great interest in you so she may let you suggest something. Although whether or not she picks it is up to her."

"Since I'm a 'Fairy' Dog am I able to give favors to people?"

"No, not that you would want to as most times they end up causing more harm than good."

"I see," I said slowly now noticing she had no wings "why don't you have wings?"

She looked at me "What?"

"I thought fairies all had wings, but you don't. Why?"

She gave a soft laugh "We do and we don't little cu."

"Huh?"

"All fairies, cu included, can change their shape to a certain degree. We don't **need** wings to fly but some prefer them. Long ago a group was seen with wings was seen by a human who ended up spreading the word around and over time all humans began to associate us with having them."

"It's because I can change my shape so much that Titania is **greatly** interested in me. Right?"

"I'm afraid that only she knows the answer to that question."

"Great. You know my name, even though you can't use it, but I still don't know yours."

"I can't tell you my name, not yet."

"Why not?"

"The time has not yet come for you to know it, nothing more, nothing less."

"Why couldn't I see you before?"

"Fairies created the veil that separates the human from the supernatural and as such we can easily manipulate it so that even those who can see through cannot see us."

"That explains why I still felt like someone was watching me."

There was silence for a few minutes while I pawed at the White Card "Can you tell me anything about this?" I asked showing it to her

She frowned as she examined it "Not much I'm afraid. It clearly functions as a method of payment but it also seems to be a seal of some sort. There may be more to it but that is all that I can see. I will have to ask Titania if she can tell me anything about it."

"Oh."

She gently put her hand on my head "Now sleep, little cu. You and I both know that there will be much activity for you in the coming days."

I wanted to protest, I still had questions I wanted to ask. But I felt myself slipping into sleep before I could even open my mouth. Whenever I see her again I'm going to make her teach me this trick. I thought as I fell asleep.

* * *

Questions? Comments? Feel free to drop em in the review  
For those of you who are particularly literature savy I don't own Titania either. Not that I think a copyright from about 500 years ago counts anymore =P.  
Might not have an update for a while as some family matters have come up, but I'm not gonna say anymore on that.

Later  
^^;


	16. Full Circle

Last chapter

For a final time in this story I don't own Digimon.  
Also, I don't own Ferrari, the company or one of there cars

* * *

The first thing I became aware of was the smell of the ocean but…how did I get there? I felt very weak and aches and pains everywhere as I lay on my side, aches, and pains and…sand? Yes definitely sand everywhere to in my fur, my ears, my hair. Hair and fur at the same time…how did that happen? I gave my tail an experimental twitch, surprisingly there was no pain. I slowly began to move my arms, legs, and fingers, none broken. I felt the end of a wave touch my feet and hands as I began to hear panicked voices behind me.

"It's still alive! Someone call 911!" a woman yelled

"Back up people, back up! Give the poor thing some space!" a man, probably a life guard

Lots of shouting and whispers of worry, I could feel my ears shifting and turning as I tried to listen to it all at once. It didn't take long for the paramedics to arrive, maybe five minutes. I could sense that at least one of them was a Digimon. They had some trouble getting through the small crowd that had gathered. When they finally made it to me they stood there for a few moments.

"Can you speak?" a kindly woman's voice asked

My throat was dry and all I managed was a hoarse croak but I nodded my head to make sure they understood.

"Can you get up?" asked a man's, equally kind

I tried to slowly push myself up but barely got up on my elbows before my arms gave out and I collapsed. Before I could even hit the sand I was caught by a strong pair of clawed and glove clad hands.

"Be careful Commandramon. We don't want him to get anymore injuries."

"Yes ma'am." Commandramon replied before he gave a deep sniff "He's a Digimon ma'am. But I for the life of me don't know what kind."

"Well then at least we don't need to worry about broken bones. Set him back down as gently as you can. Mark and I will get the stretcher."

A few seconds later I was laying face up on the stretcher as it was carried to the ambulance. They loaded me into the back were Commandramon, the woman and one of the people I suspected to be a life guard also got in. They had to shoo the crowd out of the way to close the doors but then it was a few seconds of waiting before we were off. They all seemed very confused by me. I knew I wasn't truly a Digimon but then again I wasn't truly human either. I felt a bottle at my lips and slowly drank, what turned out to be water, out of it. I slowly opened my eyes as the woman and life guard began talking.

I was looking at who I assumed to be Commandramon. He was fairly short, wearing a blue digital camouflage helmet that matched his skin. He wore grey-brown boots and black gloves. Instead of the blue green pouch covered vest from his card he had on a white one with a medic cross on the right shoulder. His yellow eyes were currently focused on a clipboard where he was jotting down the exchange between the two humans. The woman had brown eyes and shoulder length black hair that was in a neat braid. The man was indeed a life guard, I could tell by his clothes. Commandramon looked up from for a second and noticed my eyes were open.

"Ma'am," he said slowly "look at his eyes."

She gave a short gasp "My, that's not something you see every day. I know reality is supposed to be stranger than fiction, but still."

"What?" I managed to ask weakly

The life guard looked over and gave a low whistle "Gotta agree with ya there."

I put my first question out of my mind for now "Where am I, and where are we going?"

"You're in Honolulu, Hawaii and we are taking you to the hospital."

"Honolulu huh? I've got a family that lives here."

Commandramon jotted down my family's name and number and said they'd be notified as soon as we arrived at the hospital. This also meant I had to use my **real** name and not my pseudonym because they'd also need to get a copy of my medical record. The remainder of the short ride was spent mostly in silence as the paramedic finished up her standard procedure. She had a mini scanner unit to check the code of injured Digimon for problems like broken bones. After a few minutes we figured out that it was only giving us some of the information we needed.

"Your physiology is very interesting. I'm going to have to test you for broken bones the old fashion, using touch, Digimon and x-ray machines don't mix very well so please just bear with it."

"Okay."

It took her only about a minute to check me completely. When she got to my tail her hand kept passing though it like it was a cold flame. "Interesting, no broken bones, but I'll have to talk to the tech squad about getting this thing replaced." She said brandishing the scanner

I started to laugh, which turned into a cough as my throat protested and I was given more water to drink. "It probably works just fine on everyone else. It's just me that's the problem. I'm not **normal** by any stretch of the word."

"That might explain the collar and card I found near you."

If had been stronger I would have bolted upright "Where are they?" I asked franticly

"Easy dude, there right here in this bag." The life guard said as he held it up

I breathed a sigh of relief "The collar looks like it was some kinda metal. But it's all charred and broken now so I couldn't tell ya what it was made from." He said

I gave him look of worry

"Don't worry about the card though," He pulled out my White Card "feels like plastic but the thing is still in pristine condition."

The ambulance pulled to a stop and the doors were opened, the lifeguard accompanied me the entire way to the temporary room I was staying in. Once the doctors left us alone he tilted the bed up for me and put the bag in my lap. As I opened it up to examine the collar like ring that once went around my neck I noticed my finger nails were longer and sharper, almost like claws. I put it out of mind for now; the ring was indeed heavily charred and broken into three pieces. They weren't clean breaks, almost like parts of it had been disintegrated. I put the pieces back in the bag and adjusted my tail, resisting the urge to lie on my side.

"Not to be rude or anything but, you know…what are you?"

I was silent for a moment before answering "Truthfully I don't know anymore and frankly, I don't think I care. I'm alive and that's what matters."

"Oh…guess you're right."

Time passed slowly as I lay there. I eventually fell asleep from something, probably exhaustion. When I woke up I was in a different room. They must have moved me from where ever to here. I felt better now that I had slept but I still had a few aches and pains and now I was hungry. I looked around and my eyes fell on a broad shouldered man in a button down Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. He had short brown hair and brown eyes.

"Hey, Uncle Todd." I said nervously my tail swishing a little in response. I had forgotten to tell him about what had happened to me.

He stood up and walked over beside my bed "I don't see you for a couple of years and you go and grow fur, dog ears, and a tail." He said with a serious look on his face

"Yea, um about that."

He suddenly broke down laughing "Don't worry my brother already told me what happened. But he said it was either fully one or the other."

"**A lot** has happened in the past few months. The past few weeks have been particularly…exciting."

I filled him on everything. He seemed the most worried about Daemon being after me.

"That is a lot of stuff. But that still doesn't explain how you got here, why you were so beat up, and why you look the way you do."

"Last thing I remember before waking up on the beach was that fairy forcing me to sleep. But I can probably shift into a different form after I get some food."

"I'll go get one of the nurses and see if we can do something about that."

He left the room and I sat there for a few minutes before getting up to get some water. I grabbed one of the bottles of water he had sitting on the floor. I turned to go back when the bathroom mirror caught my eye; or rather my eyes caught me. I walked in and flicked on the light to make sure I wasn't seeing things. My irises had completely changed; they weren't the same green that I had grown up with. The iris in my right eye was a pale nearly white shade of blue, while my left was a striking red. The usual light grey feathery edged ring that surrounded them was now solid. As I stood there with my mouth slightly open I also saw that my canines were larger making them more like fangs. With some effort I looked away from the mirror and down at my feet. They looked more streamlined now, definitely like dog paws. Naturally I was also standing on the balls of my feet as a result.

I walked back to my bed and climb into it just as Uncle Todd and a nurse came back with a tray of food. She set the tray down on a pop up stand and took my temperature, a few blood samples, and a few notes about my appearance. She was clearly a Hawaiian native but her shoulder length hair was a bright, almost unnatural, shade of red that reminded me of lava. In her eyes I could see what looked like dancing fire. Then over the smell of the food I caught the faint smell of smoke.

"You're not human." I said with a growl

"Alex."

She sighed "If you can tell that by my appearance and smell, then, most likely, neither are you…at least not **anymore**."

She emptied my bag onto my lap and examined the ring closely before she started laughing.

"Titania, you fool. You actually thought you could bring a spirit under your control." She said to herself

"I'm not a spirit."

"Oh yes you are." She said still shaking from mirth as she pointed to two sets of markings on the inside of it. "These are part of an old and powerful type of seal designed to repress someone's power. These are for a different spell designed to make someone obey the orders of the person who placed it."

"I take it you already know **everything** about me, including that I'm a Fairy Dog?"

"Be that as it may you are, or where, part human. Any fairy that is part human **can** say no to anything they are told to do. All fairies can use the Fairy Ring to go to other dimensions, but their ability to use it is heavily restricted. They cannot travel to a lot of places because they are forbidden to, whether by Titania or by humans. You were never bound by these restrictions because you use the Hub Gate and **not** a Fairy Ring. But the only way that you could have broken these spells is if you were a spirit. Since they **are** broken that makes you a spirit."

"So…I'm not human at all?"

"You're Pele aren't you?" Uncle Todd asked

She gave him a winning smile "Indeed I am. How did you guess?"

"You said you weren't human when you answered my nephew's question. Based on your appearance there is no one else that you could be."

"You're good." She said in an amused tone before her face became somber "I **am** sorry Alex but no, you are not human anymore. You are a spirit, the first new spirit we know of in almost 1000 years."

"Am I still a Gatekeeper?"

"Yes and no. I can still feel your connection to the gates, but that doesn't change the fact that you're a spirit. In fact it may be the cause of it."

I sighed "Great so I'm never going to do or age while everyone I know does."

"Now that's not true."

"Come again?"

"Spirits and gods **can** die in battle; it's just very hard to kill them. Why do you think the Greek and Roman deities went into battle with armor and weapons? Spirits still age, but it's much slower."

"Pele…how did I get here?"

"…You probably won't believe me if I tell you."

"I'm **talking** to the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes, and you're **not** the first goddess I've talked to either."

"Fair enough…you fell…from the sky."

"You're right I don't believe you, not when the last thing I remember before waking up here was being forced to sleep by a fairy in a different world."

"I only know what I saw. But, there may be others who know more."

I felt a prickling in the back of my mind for a few seconds before it stopped.

"Others huh? I know some people that can tell me more."

"I can't let you leave yet."

"Why?"

"You haven't eaten your food." She said with a smirk "I **am** a certified nurse and I **am** working right now."

"Why do you need a job, you're a goddess."

She shrugged "It passes the time."

Uncle Todd laughed "She's just like you, can't stand sit and do nothing."

I quickly ate my food while she and Uncle Todd discussed a few things. Once I was done I started looking around for the clothes I had been wearing when I was brought in. Before I could ask Pele set some clean clothes on my lap. With a mumbled thanks I got up and went to the bathroom to change. I came out wearing a pair khaki cargo shorts and a blue unbuttoned vest, I put my White Card in one of my buttoning pockets.

"I made those myself. They're fire proof so you don't have to worry about wrecking them."

"Wow, how did get my sizes?"

"I'm going to be your teacher so it's something I need to know."

"Oh…wait, WHAT?"

She sighed "Since I was the first **person** to find you, it makes **me **responsible for teaching you."

I stood there for a few seconds with my mouth open before she cuffed the back of my head.

"Don't do that. I've already booked us on the 10 PM flight to Tokyo. Let me go clock out real quick." She grabbed Uncle Todd by the wrist "and **you're **coming with me to sign the Spirit of Chaos out."

"Why am I the Spirit of Chaos?" I asked as they were about to leave

"Fire and Ice are clashing elements, combine that with the fact that you can freely travel between dimensions and there isn't anyone else you could be." She said as they left

I put my hand on my chin "Spirit of Chaos…I like the sound of that."

I put the remains of the collar back into its bag and when I turned around Pele swiped from my hands. I said good-bye to my uncle and that I'd visit him again soon and asked him to say hi to my aunt and cousin for me before. Pele grabbed my wrist and practically dragged me out of the room and the hospital. Once we were outside she snapped her fingers creating a small spark. The bag vanished in a puff of smoke and flame.

"It's best if I destroy that thing as soon as possible, but for now we need it to use as evidence against Titania." With another snap her clothes changed, she was now wearing a pair of faded jeans and an "I love New York" t-shirt "Much better, I don't mind the nurse uniform but there's just something about it that I won't ever get used to."

"Is the shirt a joke or something?" I asked

"No, I really do like New York. There are so many people with so much going on."

"Then you'll like Tokyo to."

She led me around the corner to where her car was parked. I'm no car fanatic, hell I was happy with my brothers X-terra, but I know a Ferrari when I see one. I looked at her questioningly and she just gave me a smile as she pulled out the keys and I politely declined when she asked me if I wanted to drive. I was happy to just be riding in it; I mean come on, it's a Ferrari. In the back there was a pair of backpacks; one red and black, the other blue and red. We made it to the airport in only a few minutes, somehow hitting all the lights green and hitting zero traffic. We made it to the terminal an hour before we supposed to start boarding.

"So what's in the bags?" I asked her

"There's no fun in telling you everything just open it and find out."

I sat down on one of the seats and unzipped the large compartment. Inside was a large leather bound book, a few changes of clothes and a blanket. I pulled out the book and looked it over, turns out it was a sort of manual about being a spirit. I put it back and zipped up the main compartment before opening the smaller one on the front. I found **my** cell phone, some pens and pencils, and…

"My wallet…I thought I'd never see it again."

"Things with a lot of sentimental value to a spirit can be preserved. Your cell phone can call anyone anywhere, its battery will never die and it will never break."

I pulled my White Card out of my pocket and was about to put into my wallet when Pele grabbed it. I was about to protest when she held up a hand to silence me. She examined it for a good twenty minutes before she gave it back with a frown on her face. I put it into my wallet before putting it back into the bag and zipping it up. She was mumbling to herself about something. We sat there in silence until it was time to board, as it turns out we were sitting first class. We took our seats and then I remembered that I had a cell phone again, pulling it out I quickly called Sis.

"Hello?"

"Hey Sis, how's"

"WHERE ARE YOU?" she yelled, in the background I could suddenly hear voices asking if it was me

"I'm on a plane headed for Tokyo. We're about to take off so I have to keep this short. I just called to let you know that I'm safe and make sure you were okay."

There was silence for a few seconds "Just hang up already so your flight can leave. I'll yell at you more when you get here and then you can fill us in on what happened to you." with that she hung up and shut off my phone.

"That sister of yours sounds like quite the person." Pele said with a smirk

"You don't know the half of it. I'm surprised no one has asked about the way I look."

"Humans are strange like that, they see something slightly out of the ordinary and put it off as their mind playing games with them."

"That explains so much more than you think." I said as the plane took off

"I want you to read that book I put in your backpack. The flight is a little over seven hours long so you should have plenty of time to finish it."

"Only if you tell me why my White Card made upset you."

"It didn't upset me; it just caught me off guard."

"Why?"

"…I wasn't the first one to find you, but that person doesn't want to teach anyone. This is odd because we're always looking for a way to pass the time, especially nowadays."

"Who?"

"You know her well. She helped you wake up."

"…"

"Yes, I'm serious."

"So she is?"

"Uh-huh."

"But she's also a."

"The original. It was her brother who suggested that some humans be made Gatekeepers so they could better protect themselves from monsters. Now read."

It took me most of the flight to read the thick volume in its entirety. I flipped through it a few more times looking for anything to distract me further from the flight. It took a little while but I finally found something. In small print across the bottom of the last page were the words 'Should you so choose to be' I gently shook Pele awake and asked her about it.

"Oh that, due to the nature of, well, chaos, becoming the Spirit of Chaos is something that a person must decide upon."

"I certainly don't remember making that choice."

"It may not have been a conscious decision."

"…What if I don't want to be a spirit?"

"You **can** relinquish your title and powers as a spirit willing. But no one has ever been crazy enough to actually do it."

"Why?"

She bolted upright "Think about it; cosmic powers, near immortality, the ability to go almost anywhere and do almost anything. You'd have to be **crazy** to pass up that kind of opportunity."

We sat there in silence for the remainder of the flight. As soon as we got off I turned my phone back on and slipped it into my pocket. I pulled out my wallet and checked it again. This time I noticed that my Digimon cards were missing. We stepped outside the airport and Sis was waiting for us in her car. I began to say hello and promptly received punch in the jaw.

"What was **that** for?"

"**That**, was for making you and Daemon disappear in the middle of the fight." She then gave me a literal bone cracking hug "That" she said when she let go "was for not dieing. Who's this?"

"Oh right, this is Pele. She's the Hawaiian goddess of fire, lighting and volcanoes."

"And my personal favorite, dancing." Pele said

"It's an honor to meet you. I hope Brother didn't cause you too much trouble."

"He was no trouble at all."

As we climbed into the car I asked her "What did you mean by that?"

She started the car and we headed back to her house. "Well first we ran into Sakura."

"We did?"

"Yes, we did. The two of talked about something or other and then you tried to take off your Holy Ring but couldn't. We were going to the Fuji TV Station when Daemon showed up with MarineDevimon and LadyDevimon; Mother and I had to find some cover so we could biomerge. They beat three of the Destined before we destroyed MarineDevimon. At that point everything was going great until SkullSatamon ambushed us. He put me and six others out of commission before Onee-chan finally showed up and ground him into dust. Then she got caught up keeping LadyDevimon from killing everyone that couldn't fight anymore. You had Omnimon and Imperialdramon keeping Daemon busy while you made some marks around them in your human form."

"Then I called him out didn't I?"

"Yup, you did, in your typical showy style. He hit you pretty hard. You ended up losing your coat. I saw the ring you wore on your neck crack before you stood up. You started fighting Daemon without shifting using a combat knife. Even I thought cutting off his wings was a bit much. He outlasted you and was about to kill you right there. I blinked and the two of you were gone."

"Well that explains how you got back into this world. Those markings you made were probably for an in ground gate."

"**Now**, I remember. That was my back up plan for if I **couldn't** kill him. I was gonna drop the two of us from low orbit. I knew I could survive the fall and hopefully the impact. **He** on the other hand might survive the fall but would never survive the impact. We fell pretty far before he burned away to nothing. Because of how I was falling I hit the tops of the waves a lot before I hit shore…that's when the collar finally broke."

Suddenly all the cars stopped moving and people were pointing to a sight that Sis and I were all too familiar with. A digital field had sprung up in the middle of the next four way intersection. I groaned, this was not something we wanted to deal with right now. Whatever was in there was strong. Sis shut off the car and shifted into her Alt-form before getting out. Since I didn't have another form to shift into I just climbed out as I was. With a full moon shining brightly overhead two figures stepped out of the fading fog. One I recognized as Astamon, but I didn't know who the other was.

She was tall at least twice Astamon's height and her blonde reached midway down her back. She wore a dress that was probably white, but because of the streetlights I couldn't tell the exact color. She walked with an air of pompous grace, like she was above all of this. She had a slight frown on her face which was all it took to show that she was furious about something. I felt like I should know her but I didn't know why. I heard the car door behind me slam as Pele closed it.

"Well **Titania**," she spat the name "to what do we owe this **unexpected** visit."

Her slight frown became a full on grimace as she addressed Pele "Good to see you to Pele. I'm here for him." She said pointing at me

"I'm nobodies **pet**." I said crossing my arms

"I told you he was strong willed." Astamon said in his bored tone

Next thing I knew I was standing in front of Titania in the intersection. She snapped her fingers and a cage came into existence around me. I tried breaking the bars, nothing. Melting, couldn't even warm them. Razor sharp ice, didn't even nick them. With another snap of her fingers a collar appeared in her hand.

"Don't worry I have a way around **that**." She said as she tried to put it on me

I did what any completely rational person would do if they had long sharp teeth…I bite her. She slapped me across the face with her other hand and quickly pulled it back before I could bite it to. I tried the bars again this time covering it in my tail before solidifying it. I yanked on the bars as I heated and cooled them but they still wouldn't give. This made her smirk and what an annoying smirk it was.

"I've worked to long and hard for this to end in nothing. You **are** going to obey me. Chaos shall be reigned in and brought under **complete** order."

"So how does he benefit from this?" I said indicating Astamon

"I already have." He said with a tiny hint of enthusiasm "You not only did you get rid of that nuisance Daemon for me, but you also allowed me to clear up my debt with someone else beforehand."

There was a sudden snap of fingers and the cage melted became molten and slid to the ground in a mess as it lost cohesion. I felt a large hand grab the back of my shirt and pull me back. I looked over my shoulder and saw Pele. She stood a little taller than Titania and was now wearing a dress that looked like slowly flowing lava. I reached into my pockets to grab my phone and wallet when I remembered that I left them in the car. At least this time I wouldn't lose them if I had to fight.

"The only thing he's going to do is whatever he wants. He is the Spirit of Chaos. He's only been it for about a day but that doesn't mean he can't protect himself or **fly**." She said

I saw her wink at me and immediately took off flying up above the buildings with the moon at my back. 'Should you so choose to be.' The last line in that thick leather bound book.

"I think I know what I'm going to do as my first official act as the Spirit of Chaos. I'm going to willingly relinquish my title **and** the powers associated with it."

"You **wouldn't**!" Titania seethed "You'd be mad!"

"Then call the boys with the white coats and call me crazy! And while you're at it why don't the two of you got take a long walk off a short pier. It'll do wonders for the rest of us."

Everything around me was being like up like it was day.

"You'll be a Digimon for the rest of your life!"

"Let me see; being extremely cute, the ability to fight alongside my friends and family, and let's not forget fucking up your puppet master-esk plans. Hell, I'd have to be mad not to want that."

I could feel my body shrinking as I turned back into a Kudamon. In the bright light I was giving off I got a good look at myself. White fur, gold markings, and instead of a golden Holy Ring I had a silvery one. The Digicode on it read 'Digital Monster' like it was supposed. The light I was giving off fade away. Rather than floating dramatically to the ground like I had hoped would happen gravity decided to pull on me. Mid fall I was grabbed out of the air by the last person I expected. We landed on the top of a building with her cradling me in one arm.

"For someone who was once human, you always seem to find a way to impress me Oto-chan."

I smiled up at the goddess Artemis, known to more people as Dianamon, and to me as Onee-chan.

"I do try Onee-chan, or would you prefer Artemis?"

"Pele never could keep secrets, and Onee-chan is fine."

"To be fair she only half told me, I figured it out on my own." I could tell that underneath her helmet she was beaming at me "So…how many gates am I in charge of now?"

"Three, just as you always have been."

"Wait, before we do anything more."

I put my paws on either side of my Holy Ring and pushed up. With a bit of force it came right off. I gave it quick looking over for any markings that shouldn't be on the inside. When I didn't find any I promptly slid it back on.

"Had to make sure it wasn't rigged like my other one." I said with a smile

She set me down on the roof and motioned for Sis to join us. She phased in right next to me. Onee-chan reached into the thing on her back and pulled out two things. One thing was a light blue D-Power with a red strap and grey ring around the screen. The other was a small stack of cards. Looking at them I realized who these things belonged to as she handed them to Sis.

"Those are mine aren't they."

"That's right," Onee-chan said with giggle "with Imouto-chan's help you are going to deal with Astamon. Pele and I will deal with Titania. Oh and try **this** card **first**." She said handing Sis my White Card

"How did you?"

"I made that card remember? It only has to be slashed through your D-power once then it'll turn back into your credit card."

"Well then what are we waiting for." Sis said

She took the card picked me up and phased us back onto the road below where she set me down and took a few steps back.

"**Digimodify!...Gate Digivolution Activate!**"

I was engulfed in cocoon of code and my outer body was stripped away revealing a wire frame beneath. The glowing form within the frame grew larger and shattered the cocoon. Rings of fire, ice, and metal slowly rotated around me as I held my arms out to the side. Metal rings formed around my wrists and ankles. From the rings intricately weaving metal spread out encasing me hands in the basket hilts of swords. My feet were encased in a sort of half basket. Metal plates fastened themselves to my thighs, chest and back. I brought my arms in front of me like I was holding a dirk and claymore and blades of the proper length extended from the basket hilts around my hands. No wings like in my dream but I would be fine; I mean sure he had a gun, but **I** had the tried and true Highland Charge, but since I lacked a targe and it was against a single person I would have to improvise a little. My tail swished in anticipation, I would only get one shot at this before I'd be in trouble.

"Get him Brother!"

I put the flat of my claymore across my left shoulder and sprinted straight at Astamon covering the distance in the same time it took him to raise his gun. I ducked my left shoulder down so it would pass under it and he started shooting. As my shoulder moved under the barrel I brought it and my dirk up sheering clean through it. I turned my left hand so the blade was facing the ground as my body slammed into his and I brought it down and stabbed straight into his right shoulder. I lifted my claymore and brought down while he shoved his weight to the left causing me to cleanly severing his left arm which burst into data.

I gave a grunt of disappointment. I was aiming to take his head off with that blow. He dropped what was left of his gun and staggered backwards, tripping over his own feet. He continued to crawl backwards not daring to turn his face from me. I took a few calm steps forward kicking away the remains of the gun as I passed it.

"Lesson one you Capone wannabe: that little maneuver is a variation of the Highland Charge, which originally included a shield, it was used against musketeers. I had to alter it since A; I don't have shield, and B; you're just one target and I don't think stabbing you in the chest is a guaranteed kill. Lesson two: I'm a Re-enactor who specializes in the Scottish of the time period it was used in and so it's a tactic I'm **thoroughly** drilled in. Lesson three: if you hadn't moved I'd have taken off your head with that swing, but if I had done that then I wouldn't get to subject you to the humiliation of public ridicule from a sixteen year old."

Astamon's boots began to glow and he brought one of them up to kick me with a shout of "Maverick!" I leapt back narrowly avoiding a kick between my legs. I brought the flat of my claymore down on his raised boot with a resounding clang of metal on metal. He kicked out again, this time going for my knee. I brought my claymore back up to my left shoulder as I side stepped. I swung down creating sparks as my blade dragged across the concrete. When my right arm was straight out to my side again Astamon gave a voiceless cry before he exploded into data which I let float away as I digivolved back into Kudamon and fell over on my back tired from making so much use of a weighty sword. Sis bent over and picked me up.

"You did great Brother."

I looked up and smiled "Thanks Sis, as clichéd as this sounds, I couldn't have done it without you."

"You're right; you can't exactly slash any sort of Digivolution card on your own. By the way your eyes are still mismatched."  
"Meh, can live it. More importantly I'm glad I managed to cross the distance **before** he could start shooting." Sis turned around and we started walking back towards the car

"That stuff you said to him, how much of it was true?"

"All of it."

We passed Onee-chan, Pele, and Titania. Titania was bound by silvery chains and rings. She threw me a death glare as we passed by her. Pele and Onee-chan exchanged a brief conversation before Pele nodded. With a snap of her fingers she and Titania disappeared in a puff of smoke and flames. Onee-chan joined us as we walked back to Sis's car.

"Can you do that finger snapping magic stuff to?" I asked

She snapped her fingers and her armor disappeared, she stood there in her long sleeved white shirt and jeans. Her hair was still straight, shoulder length, and light pink laced with occasional streaks of blonde and tinted purple around the end. Her pale skin was the same color as the moon. Well, since she **is** the goddess of the moon it kind of made sense. We climbed into the car; I curled up around Onee-chan's neck.

"Should I start at the beginning?" she asked

"No, I just want to know how Kudamon fits into all this and what I **really** am."

"He is my oldest and most loyal hunting hound. When I chose to take on a Digimon form, he followed suit. When your second and third gates began to manifest I sent him to help you. But I must admit, even I didn't see the possibility of him needing to be merged with you. Once you had three gates I knew the possibility of you becoming a spirit was high. So to protect you I had to take a more…**direct** approach."

"That's one question answered."

"Like Titania said you are Digimon now. But since you're a Gatekeeper you can draw the energy you need for Digivolution from anywhere, which makes your D-Power largely just a symbol of your choice. It can still be used to locate and help you though, so think hard about who you're going to let keep it."

"I trust my Sister to look after it **and** my cards."

"What about Titania?"

"Well we've **finally** gathered enough information to bar her and her estranged husband Oberon from **all** the worlds. It's essentially house arrest. The two of them have been engaged in a power struggle for about the last 500 years. They've influenced the cause of several major disasters within the past fifty or so years."

"Why didn't the two of them just get a divorce or something?"

Onee-chan sighed "The problem with fairy laws and promises is that they are absolute and unbreakable. They couldn't agree on anything, it didn't help that they both wanted to be in complete control. But, try as they might, those two simply couldn't find a way out of their marriage so they started getting rid of each other's servants in various ways. Oberon's most recent ploy is one that I'm sure you are **very** familiar with, as it was rather…sickening, no vile thing that he caused."

"You mean…NO, NO WAY! He caused D-Reaper?"

"Correct." She growled

"Then why didn't ya'll"

"Oh WE DID punish him as soon as it was dealt with. He was barred from **this **world **and** the Digiworld, not just this Quadrant but the whole thing."

"Then why was Titania after me?"

"Bragging rights mostly but also because your abilities can be applied to such a wide range of things. But enough about that topic, since you're a Digimon now are you going to choose your own names? I can tell you right now that you're a natural Champion level. Your Ultimate form is the one you were in when you escaped from the Daemon in the Dark World and you just used your Mega."

"Nah, leave it to the D-Power to choose. How are the Destined doing?"

"I'll fill them in later, but it will have to be done discreetly. Their government has decided that for now Digimon from the Southern Quadrant are better off staying there."

"Won't stop me, I don't have to use the Quadrant Gate."

As soon as I walked into the family room in Sis's house every D-Power present lit up, well except mine.

"Frenatamon, Champion level, vaccine type, his special attack is Burning Comet."

"Is my tail really long enough to justify that?" I said as I looked at it

"Yes, yes it is." Kudamon said as he messed up my fur

"Welcome home." Kotemon said as she gave me a hug

"You guys can stay up as long as you want but I'm going to bed. I didn't get any sleep on the flight and I know Sis and Onee-chan will fill you in for me."

Everyone said goodnight to me as I left and walked down the hall to my room. I curled up on the futon and closed my eyes. I'm a Digimon and I've got enough craziness in my life for ten people. It's practically drawn to me. The outside door slide open and someone walked in.

"Welcome back Boss." Sakura said in quiet voice

"Not your Boss. Friend? Sure. But ya'll have done a good enough job policing yourselves for the past 200 or so years. I think ya'll do just fine without one."

"Well," she leaned over and kissed my forehead "then goodnight, Frenatamon." She said as she stepped back outside and closed the door.

The strange odd and surreal may be drawn to me. It may make my life hectic and crazy. But, I wouldn't trade it for all the powers of a spirit.

* * *

Well, I hope ya'll enjoyed my story.  
Alex, who is now Frenatamon, makes refrence to his tail length because frenata is the species name of the Long-tailed Weasel.  
Because I like to write I'll probably do a sequel.  
Feel free to drop questions, comments, and reviews are welcome.

Until next time  
Later ^^;


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